Preamble

The House met at Eleven o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PETITION

Boating Industry

Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles: With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I wish to present a public petition on behalf of boat builders and boat users.
I want to make it clear at the outset that, although my family have been concerned with this industry since the last century, I have no financial interest to declare today.
The petition was brought to Parliament by river in a small boat which is a veteran of Dunkirk by the son of the man who took her to Dunkirk. I present the petition on behalf of the 30,000 people directly employed in boat yards, the much larger numbers indirectly concerned in the industry and the multitude of people from every constituency in the United Kingdom who go afloat for healthy recreation in 750,000 boats and dinghies.
The petition is in these words:
The humble petition of members of the Ship and Boat Builders' National Federation representing the British boating industry.
Whereas the Chancellor of the Exchequer has proposed in his Budget speech on 15th April that value added tax be increased to 25 per centum on the retail value of boats and their equipment and that such a step would be harsh and inequitable.
Wherefore your petitioners pray that Parliament do enact legislation to provide for the rate of value added tax on boats and their equipment to be reduced forthwith to the standard rate of 8 per centum.
And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray".
It is signed by David Sanders, the president, Thomas Webb, the director-general, and Paul Wagstaffe, the secretary-general.
I beg leave to present the petition.

To lie upon the Table.

CYPRUS (BRITISH SUBJECTS)

Mr. Hastings: (by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the current treatment of British residents and the security of property of British citizens in the Turkish-occupied zone of Cyprus at the present time.

The Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Roy Hattersley): Her Majesty's Government have much sympathy for the British residents in the Turkish-occupied area of Cyprus, whose problems continue to cause grave concern. The worst problem is looting and damage to property, associated with inadequate law enforcement, though administrative restrictions are causing increasing inconvenience. The local authorities have been repeatedly reminded of their responsibilities to protect United Kingdom citizens and their property, and repeated representations have also been made to the Turkish Government. The situation is kept continually under review.

Mr. Hastings: I am grateful to the Minister for that reply, but does he appreciate that the position seems to have deteriorated further since his last statement in the House? Is he in a position to confirm that British citizens trying to get access from Greek Cyprus to their properties are forbidden to enter the Turkish area, that if British residents in the Turkish area want to leave they can get permission but cannot get permission to return, and that, moreover, all British owners of property are required to register their ownership by 30th June in the Turkish quarter of Nicosia to which, equally, they have no access, which means that their only recourse is to send their title deeds by post, which, I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will agree, very few people are likely to do in the circumstances? Does not this begin to look like the preparations for naked expropriation? I am sure that most Turkish Cypriots would never countenance such a course, but it may be a very different matter where the Turkish Army is involved.
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, unfortunately, British residents out


there have come to regard the high commission as unhelpful in this matter? Despite what the right hon. Gentleman said, will he see whether, if this be true, some additional protest can be made urgently to the Turkish Government as well as to the Turkish authorities in Cyprus?

Mr. Hattersley: I want first to repudiate entirely, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman does, any suggestion that the high commission has been anything other than as helpful as possible in the circumstances. The High Commissioner and his staff have played a notable and, on many occasions, a very brave rôle during the Cyprus emergency of the summer and during the months which have followed it. I am sure that those people who know what the High Commissioner and his staff have done are deeply appreciative of what they have accomplished in appallingly difficult circumstances.
As to the two specific matters raised by the hon. Gentleman, there is one restriction on travel about which we knew and which I have reported to the House; namely, that both the Turkish authorities in the north and the authorities in the south insist that visitors to Cyprus who enter that country through a port which one or other authority does not recognise are illegal immigrants and, therefore, in theory at least, place some restriction on their movements, though as far as we know that has not been applied very rigorously to British subjects who enter the north and they want to move to the south. If the hon. Gentleman has any evidence about that happening, I should be grateful for it. I have no information about a date being placed on the end to registration of property, nor about the particular inconvenience to which he referred. Again, I should be grateful for the evidence if he possesses it, and we will look into it immediately.

Sir George Sinclair: May I add my plea that the Minister should make the strongest representations to the Turkish Government over their handling of this problem, because the northern part of Cyprus is effectively under the control of the Turkish Government?
As a former deputy governor of Cyprus, I have had many representations made to me about property that has been

looted and over which people have been unable to get any reassurance. This applies also to property in the southern part of the island belonging to British residents which has been looted by the other community. Will the right hon. Gentleman keep a wary eye on that matter, too? There is a special case which I shall be presenting to him later. Again, I ask that the strongest representations be made to the Government of Turkey to get on with this matter and to reassure people who have worked with both communities over many years in Cyprus.

Mr. Hattersley: I am happy to confirm that Her Majesty's Government will carry on doing exactly what the hon. Gentleman suggests. There have been repeated representations since the day of the invasion. Indeed, on the night of the invasion, when we anticipated that it might take place, the Turkish ambassador came to the Foreign Office, at my request, and was warned that if the ships then only a few miles off the coast of Cyprus were to be the occasion of landings we would expect him to ensure that obligations towards British citizens and property were properly fulfilled. Since that night repeated representations have been made. Most recently, on 11th March, a Written Note, with all the formality that that implies, was delivered. It was the second one which had been delivered to the Turkish Foreign Ministry. Continually since that note was delivered in the middle of March, we have made verbal representations asking for its implementation. The hon. Gentleman will understand that there are limits to what we can do and to our powers. However, I assure him that we will press on as hard and determinedly as we can.

Mr. Ernest G. Perry: Will my right hon. Friend understand that in my constituency there is the widow of a British civil servant who worked in Cyprus and owns a very small plot of land north of the Famagusta line? She has been asked for her title deeds. She will not part with them on my advice. I have them in my possession. I feel that there is an obligation on the British Government to see what they can do for people like this widow who are being deprived of what they have worked for all their lives.

Mr. Hattersley: I do not dissent from any judgments made by my hon. Friend about our obligation and duty to protect British residents as best we can. The example he gave is one of many. Now that we have set up a register of property, we continually hear of cases as tragic and desperate as the one to which he referred. I promise him that we will go on representing their interests as best we can.

Mr. Tugendhat: Is the Minister aware that the Opposition agree that the high commission in Cyprus has operated under the most terrible difficulties and that we join him in paying tribute to the good work that has been done under difficult circumstances?
Will the right hon. Gentleman understand that the situation revealed by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Hastings) is very serious? Although we recognise that the British Government's influence in these matters is necessarily limited and that we can do very much less than many of our constituents believe, the Turks have in the past shown themselves somewhat susceptible to bad publicity. They seem anxious to maintain the good opinion of the world. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that if the British Government made as vigorous efforts as possible to publicise and expose the kind of dangers to which

hon. Members on both sides have drawn attention, it could be of great assistance in helping British subjects who are in the difficulties which have been so eloquently described?

Mr. Hattersley: It is a matter of judgment whether progress is made by the rather public ways that the hon. Gentleman recommends, or at least implies, might be right. If he considers that Turkish reaction, for instance, to the arms embargo imposed by the Congress of the United States, he may agree that one could at least argue that public steps of that kind are more likely to harden attitudes than to soften opinions. I understand the necessity for making every kind of approach which seems right, and we will go on doing that.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. We must go on.

BILL PRESENTED

HARE COURSING BILL

Mr. Secretary Jenkins, supported by Mr. Edward Short, Mr. Secretary Ross, Mr. Attorney General, and Dr. Shirley Summerskill, presented a Bill to make hare coursing matches illegal: and the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Monday next and to be printed. [Bill 154.]

Orders of the Day — HEARING AID COUNCIL (EXTENSION) BILL

Considered in. Committee.

[Mr. GEORGE THOMAS in the Chair]

Clause 1

EXTENSION OF HEARING AID COUNCIL ACT 1968 TO NORTHERN IRELAND

11.16 a.m.

Mrs. Helene Hayman: I beg to move Amendment No. 2, in page 1, line 11, at end insert—
'(aa) in section 2(3) after the words "office of the Council" there shall be inserted the words "and at such place or places in Northern Ireland as the Secretary of State may designate."'
The purpose of the amendment is to probe exactly how the Government envisage implementing the extension of the Hearing Aid Council Act to Northern Ireland. Many hon. Members are concerned that this extension should not simply be to give Northern Ireland the same VAT concessions as operate in the rest of the United Kingdom.
The purpose of the original Hearing Aid Council Act was not to exempt hearing aids fom VAT. It had a much wider, more definite social purpose. I appreciate the many reasons behind the intention of the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) in extending the Hearing Aid Council Act to Northern Ireland, but one of the main reasons must be the issue of VAT. Indeed, the Government have previously indicated their concern over this issue. They have made a specific extra-statutory provision, but this cannot go on for ever. It is only right that we should make sure that the position is regularised and that the VAT concessions extend to Northern Ireland by statute.
The original Act was very wide in its scope. It was brought into this House, before VAT was thought of in this country, primarily to protect the consumer by ensuring that the deaf and hard of hearing were no longer conned as they had been in the past. One of the main measures by which they were to be afforded this protection was that dispensers of hearing aids should be properly trained and registered and that,

above all, it should be possible for the consumer to find out whether the person purporting to sell him a hearing aid was registered with the council, as he is legally obliged to be.

Mr. Ernest G. Perry: Does my hon. Friend know that, because of the charlatan business in the sale of hearing aids and appliances, more so-called hearing aids are being thrown into dustbins than are actually being used because they become defective and useless after a few hours?

Mrs. Hayman: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. That is absolutely correct. It was phoney practices of that kind that the original Act set out to conquer. It imposed penalties on people who dispensed phoney hearing aids and purported to be registered as dispensers when they were not so registered.
The original Act provides for a register of dispensers to be kept at the offices of the council in London. The amendment says that the register shall be kept not only in London but in other areas as well. We are seeking to extend the Act in all its provisions to Northern Ireland. Can we be satisfied that we are doing the job effectively if the only method by which someone can check whether a person purporting to be a registered dispenser is in fact so registered is to consult a register in London? As we are extending the provisions of the Act to Northern Ireland we should provide for the establishment of offices of the council at Belfast and possibly other places where the bona fides of dispensers can be checked by potential customers.
There are weaknesses in the original Act. There is only one register in London for the whole of the area to which the Act applies. This does not make things easy for people in the regions, and we have met these difficulties in practice. How much more difficult it will be if we leave the section of the Act as it stands instead of making sure that we have a kind of sub-office of the council in Northern Ireland to perform the functions of the council in that area in the way that they are performed in London.
I consider this matter to be of paramount importance because we, as


Parliament, have for the moment to legislate for Northern Ireland. We must make sure that the legislative intent of this Chamber is carried out in practice in Northern Ireland, and it is not enough simply to amend the law. We must look at its implementation and make sure that it is effective in the areas to which we extend it.
The practice nowadays appears to be to increase centralisation and, if a measure is extended to an area, merely to add that area to the list without making sure that we give it the resources that are needed to ensure that consumers are provided with the necessary facilities. People in Northern Ireland should have the same protection and the same recourse to the council as are available to people in this country.
The hon. Member for Belfast, West is not able to be here today because he is concerned with events in his constituency, but it is only right that we should pay tribute to the work that he has done. I am sure he will accept that the amendment is very much in the spirit of what he is attempting to do in this extending measure. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister for being present to give us the Government's view of the amendment.

Mr. Robert Kilroy-Silk: I am pleased to join my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn and Hatfield (Mrs. Hayman) in paying tribute to the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) for having introduced this important Bill. It is extraordinary that we should have passed the original Act as long ago as 1968 and not made provision in it for proper access and facilities in Northern Ireland.
The Act established the Hearing Aid Council. The purpose of the Bill is to establish a register of dispensers of hearing aids in Northern Ireland. The amendment is intended to ensure that access to the registrar of registered dispensers of hearing aids shall be possible at all times by the people of Northern Ireland. It seems appropriate that if we extend the original Act by means of the Bill to Northern Ireland, we should at the same time extend the facilities for the public scrutiny of the register of dispensers of

hearing aids to the people in Northern Ireland.
We all have personal experience of the activities of hucksters on doorsteps and of constituents who have had trouble with so-called salesmen of hearing aids. It is important that there should be established a register in Northern Ireland and that people there should have access to it. I find it extraordinary that the Act was not extended to Northern Ireland in the first place.
People in Northern Ireland who want to establish whether a certain dispenser of hearing aids is a bona fide, respected and honoured dispenser have to made inquiries in England. Many of the Irish are not exactly trusting people, as I am sure you know, Mr. Thomas. They do not always trust the English, and they are not very happy about having to write to the council in England. Rather than receive a somewhat bureaucratic, often long-winded and sometimes equivocal reply to their letters, they would prefer to go to the office themselves and see the register. In any case, they cannot depend upon getting a quick reply because of the vagaries of the postal system.

Mr. John Golding: I hope that my hon. Friend will reconsider the damaging statement that he has just made.

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: I am at a loss to know to which statement my hon. Friend is referring.

Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: About the postal services.

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: I should not wish to cast a slur on the postal services, as I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding) will know and accept, but I am sure he will accept also that there are occasions—and he and I have experienced them— when there are delays in the delivery of letters—not excessive delays but, nevertheless, delays.
The Irish people tend to be impatient, and rightly so. They want a quick reply to their queries, particularly on a matter of this kind. They want to know the bona fides of the dispensers of hearing aids. They want to know whether they are registered, and if there is a delay—

Mrs. Dunwoody: I cannot allow my hon. Friend's wicked slur upon the Irish to pass without comment. They are a people of monumental patience who, in some instances, could be said to have been waiting for 900 years for some change in their situation. Will my hon. Friend accept that they are people to whom tomorrow seems to be a day that will never come?

The Chairman: Order. Today has arrived for us and we are considering the amendment before the Committee.

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: The amendment is extremely important, Mr. Thomas, and I shall confine my remarks to it. Its purpose is to ensure that offices of the register are set up in Northern Ireland. As my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe (Mr. Dunwoody) has just said, the Irish people are very patient—too patient in many cases—and their patience has been demonstrated yet again by the fact that they have waited seven years from the passing of the original Act to have its provisions extended to them. Even now we have to move an amendment to ensure that the extending Bill is tightened even further and that the register now located in England has offices in Northern Ireland. It is important that all citizens should have free access to the register.
As we have in England, and as we intend to have in Northern Ireland, a register of those who are entitled to dispense hearing aids, it is important that all those who wish and need to purchase these aids have access to some means of establishing the bona fides of those who are dispensing them. There cannot be proper access with a separation of several hundred miles. It is not reasonable access when one would have to write or make the long, arduous and expensive trip across the Irish Sea.
11.30 a.m.
The amendment is doing the Home Secretary a favour. I hope that I shall not be accused again of casting a slur on our Irish brethren. The Prevention of Terrorism Act will be coming up for renewal soon. It is specifically designed to keep people from Ireland out of this country, yet the location of the register here positively encourages people to come over. Perhaps that is a contribution to our export industries or to subsidies to British Rail ferries.
It is not reasonable to expect people to come here simply to check whether Johnny O'Flaherty who has just offered them a hearing aid is a bona fide dispenser. That information should be readily available.
I would make one slight criticism of the hon. Member for Belfast, West for not having included the amendment in the Bill, but no doubt he will welcome it.

Mr. Golding: My hon. Friend speaks as if with the authority of the hon. Member. Would he make it clear that there is no authority from the hon. Member for his Bill to be so amended?

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: I can only confirm that. I speak with no other authority than that which I possess by virtue of being myself, which it is not for me to judge.
Northern Ireland, like Merseyside, which I am proud to represent, has unacceptably high unemployment. The establishment of these offices in Northern Ireland will not give rise to massive bureaucracy, but it may provide some ancillary employment. This will be minimal by the standards of the welcome and necessary aid dispensed by the Secretary of State for Industry, which on Merseyside, as in other areas, is making a welcome contribution to employment prospects. So the establishment of these offices is not simply intrinsically useful: it will also contribute to employment.
People expect their public authorities to be accountable and open. We have established a register of Members' interests which is accessible to the public and is maintained on the premises. We shall not have to travel far. This principle is equally important in Northern Ireland. I therefore welcome the amendment.

Mrs. Dunwoody: It is a delight for me to support the amendment. It is rarely given to us to make an apologia pro vita sua—

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: Oh!

Mrs. Dunwoody: The advantage of a State education is that one acquires a number of Latin tags.

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: My hon. Friend would not wish to imply, I hope, that


I was not also a recipient of State education.

Mrs. Dunwoody: I judged from the brilliance of my hon. Friend's speech that that was so. I would not wish to cast slurs on his education.
As one of those concerned with the original Act. I am happy to be able to talk about its extension to Northern Ireland. It has been suggested that the Act should have included this extension. I am very pleased that the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) has decided that these advantages should be extended to his countrymen. They were not included in the original Act because it was felt that there were few dispensers in Northern Ireland, but it has become painfully clear that this was a considerable omission.
The understanding of age comes to each of us in a different way. It came to me when I realised that I and my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, South (Mr. Pavitt), who has spent a good deal of time looking after the interests of the deaf and those with partial hearing, are the only two hon. Members who were concerned with the original Act. I had the privilege of working on that Act with a colleague who is now in another place. It was recognised by the industry at the time that the public was being gulled into accepting inferior protection. The Hearing Aid Council was set up to maintain standards. No one was accepted for registration unless he could prove a certain number of years of training.
This is not normal marketing that we are talking about. As one who has been privileged to work with the deaf for many years, I know that this is one of the most terrifying disabilities. We feel instant sympathy with someone who is blind or has a damaged limb, but we are irritated by a deaf child or adult who does not pay attention, although we know that they cannot hear us—

The Chairman: Order. I am reluctant to interrupt the hon. Lady, but it is rather a Second Reading speech that she is making. I hope that she will relate her remarks to the question of the registration of the council in Northern Ireland.

Mrs. Dunwoody: I was hoping, Mr. Thomas, to show why it is essential that the registration of the council should

carry with it considerable standards. This is tremendously important. Although the Bill appears not to involve the majority of the House today, it is of considerable importance to a great many people.
May I say, dear Mr. Thomas, that there are very few men who really have effect in my life. Mr. Speaker is one, you are another and my bank manager is a third. Although I am deeply hurt that Mr. Speaker has not seen fit to select my amendments to the clause, I have long learned that my life is one of bitter disappointments and that I shall have to deal as best I can with these problems.

The Chairman: Order. In order that at least Mr. Speaker may keep the hon. Lady's affections, I should like to indicate that the selection was mine.

Mrs. Dunwoody: I am mortified, Mr. Thomas, that one of my countrymen should deal with me so unkindly.

Mr. Donald Stewart: Withdraw!

Mrs. Dunwoody: I return to this tremendously important clause. I am delighted to see my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary present on the Front Bench today. I know that so much of his time is spent in the dangerous conditions of Northern Ireland. I am always delighted to see him return in one piece. I should like him to indicate how the relationship of firms which have branches both in Northern Ireland and in Eire will be worked out. This will concern those who are to register dispensers in Northern Ireland as to the standard of practice.
Will the doorstep salesman who is registered in Northern Ireland but who does not have the back-up service necessary to provide a very high level of service be able to say that he is providing those services in Eire, or will this be restricted in some way so that those firms which register in Northern Ireland will not need to have back-up services over the border? Will my hon. Friend seriously consider setting un a register in Northern Ireland, or at least providing a copy of the existing register, which is readily available?
I accept that in the first analysis we should have made facilities to examine the register available to people all over Great Britain, let alone Northern Ireland. It was definitely a mistake that we did not do so, because in this, as in so many


other matters, the woman who is educated and interested in consumer affairs knows where to get advice about standards of hearing aids. On the other hand, the woman who is presented with a very plausible salesman at her front door and who knows that she is gradually losing some facility of hearing, but who in some instances is not even prepared to accept that this is a medical condition, is much more likely to be unaware of the existence of a register in London and totally unable to work out how she should obtain the information on that register to make sure that the person with whom she is dealing is a reputable salesman.
In supporting the clause I am not seeking to earn the wrath of those in high places. I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will explain quite a lot about the relationship between Northern Ireland and Eire as it affects the firms concerned. I hope he will take great care to note that there is very clear evidence that in this country we have at least begun to deal with many of the abuses since 1968. There are still gaps in the legislation. We should like to hear my hon. Friend's views on this subject.

11.45 a.m.

Mr. Golding: I am one of the sponsors of the Bill. I am very pleased to congratulate the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) on introducing it. Together with other hon. Members, I am very sorry that, understandably, he is unable to be present today.
Another matter that we must regret is that while we congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, South (Mr. Pavitt), who is sitting on the Front Bench, on introducing the original Bill, we have to regret that because he is in the Government's service as a Whip he is unable today to move the amendments which I am sure he would have wanted to move on the basis of his experience since doing the sterling work on the original Bill.
Having said that I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, South would agree that my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn and Hatfield (Mrs. Hayman) and my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe (Mrs. Dunwoody) are considerably better looking than either he or myself.
Congratulations are due to those who have spoken to the amendment, be-

cause it goes to the heart of one of the problems facing the person buying a hearing aid. As my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe—my parliamentary neighbour—explained, the purpose of the original Act was not to provide exemption from value added tax, although I am sure that both she and I would agree that it was absolutely essential that the VAT exemption should have been applied. However, my hon. Friend was right to point out that the Act was designed to protect the consumer.
First of all, it was to establish standards of competence and of honesty and to establish a register of those considered competent and honest. The establishment of the register was a great step forward in the relationship between the sellers of hearing aids and those who, unfortunately, have to purchase them—the hard of hearing. It was a great step forward, but it was not a step that meant very much without publicity.
I want to turn to the question of publication and accessibility of the register. It is a prior condition of the amendment that publicity takes place. If this debate serves no other purpose, it will draw the attention of the hard of hearing to the existence of the register in this country. I should have thought that it is a little obscure and remote, and that because of this many people may have been exploited over the last few years when they need not have been exploited. They were not aware of the existence of the register. One of the most important things in consumer affairs is that an individual should know his rights, not simply that the rights should exist, and that he should be easily able to exercise his rights.
I declare an interest in the affairs of the Post Office. That it why I jumped to my feet when my hon. Friend the Member for Ormskirk (Mr. Kilroy-Silk) referred to Post Office delays. That question is irrelevant. I was surprised, Mr. Thomas, that you were able to contain yourself when my hon. Friend advanced that argument. His charge was scurrilous and irrelevant.

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: I am sure my hon. Friend would not wish the word "scurrilous" to be applied to what I expressly described as the minor and infrequent delays which are experienced by those of us who need to use the


services of the Post Office. Surely he does not believe that I should lightly make such comments about his and my colleagues who perform valuable work in the postal services. He will accept that we all experience delays from time to time which are regrettable. He will also accept that one has, and should have, the opportunity to express disappointment at those delays and regret that they have occurred.
No one, least of all my hon. Friend, whom I respect as a great defender of the Post Office and who I am always glad to see jump quickly to his feet when its interests are attacked or its motives impugned, should describe a mere expression of disappointment and regret as a scurrilous slur on his friends in the Post Office. Surely my hon. Friend will now willingly withdraw that epithet.

Mr. Golding: My hon. Friend has indicated that it was what I will call a youthful indiscretion. Perhaps he was too hurried in his speech and did not give himself time to explain what he meant. The hon. Member for the Western Isles (Mr. Stewart) may say that my hon. Friend was right. I would not join issue with the hon. Gentleman as I did with my hon. Friend. Now that my hon. Friend has unreservedly withdrawn the implied suggestion, I in turn will say that there is no reason why my wrath should continue to fall on my hon. Friend's head.

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: I am obliged.

Mr. Golding: I return to the amendment. If my hon. Friend the Member for Ormskirk had said that for many people the writing of letters and the obtaining of addresses was difficult, I would have sympathised with him immediately.

Mrs. Dunwoody: Does my hon. Friend accept that if the Government were to spend on advertising the existence of the register, its location, and how simple it is to check on the bona fides of the salesmen, one-twentieth of the amount that salesmen of existing and not very efficient hearing aids spend on both local and national advertising, we should begin to have something like a service

from which the consumer could really benefit?

Mr. Golding: I take my hon. Friend's point. The time lapse that must inevitably occur between the sending of a letter and the receiving of a reply could be overcome by the use of Post Office facsimile developments, but this is irrelevant to the argument.
My name appears to the amendment, but since listening to my hon. Friends I have begun to develop doubts about its wording I confess that I should have taken more notice of this when I signed the amendment, but I wonder whether we should leave it to the Secretary of State to designate the places where the register should be displayed. I presume that in this case the Secretary of State would be the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection and that, given the present constitutional position, it would not be the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Will my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary enlighten the House on this point?
Let me say at once that I have the utmost faith in every Secretary of State in this Government, particularly in my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Northern Ireland and for Prices and Consumer Protection. Although I have a particular regard for those Ministers, on more mature consideration I do not wish to give them the responsibility of deciding at which place or places in Northern Ireland the copy of the register should be kept.
It would have been better had we designated that in each local authority headquarters in Northern Ireland a copy of the register should be kept. I am not certain whether there are weights and measures offices in Northern Ireland. Were there to be such offices there and offices with responsibility for consumer protection, that is where the register should be. The officers in local government responsible for ensuring the protection of the consumer should be asked to ensure that those who are hard of hearing and who will be purchasing aids should be made aware of the existence of a register in their locality.

Mr. Kilroy-Sin: My hon. Friend is making an important point which is not unrelated to the point he made at the


beginning about the desirability of publicity in this country of the existence of the council and its register. He is now referring to the siting of offices in certain locations in Northern Ireland. Perhaps he will give the Committee the benefit of his learned and deep knowledge of Northern Ireland and indicate where he thinks those offices should be located. Perhaps he will indicate how many there should be.
What is in many ways more important is that due publicity and notice should be given to the people of Northern Ireland of the existence and location of those offices. How, for example, would my hon. Friend expect that they be publicised? Mere advertising in local newspapers on a once-for-all basis does not seem to be an appropriate or adequate way of publicising the existence of the register or the location of the offices.
12 noon.
There is no point in making the amendment and establishing the offices where the register is to be kept if most of the people who need the services of the register do not know of its existence. Therefore, we ought to consider how we shall ensure that the people most affected will know of the register's existence. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding), in the eloquent way in which he addresses you, Mr. Thomas, and the Committee in general, will cast his mind over that problem and let us have the benefit of his experience.

The Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. J. D. Concannon): rose—

Mr. Golding: May I first reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Ormskirk and say that were I to answer the questions which he has just asked I should be out of order.

The Chairman: The hon. Gentleman may be assured that I shall give him all the help I can in that respect.

Mr. Golding: Before I give way to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, may I say, Mr. Thomas, that I should apologise to you when rebuking my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe. I intended to say in a sotto voice—

Mrs. Dunwoody: A sotto voice?

Mr. Golding: That is how I learned to say it in a State school—to my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe that we would have an opportunity of making some general points in the debate on the clause and that, therefore, it would be improper to stray from the amendment which we are discussing. I now give way to the Under-Secretary.

Mr. Concannon: I was merely going to point out to my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding) that if we are talking about the reorganisation of local government in Ireland, it is somewhat different there from what it is in this country. There was a Constitutional Convention election yesterday, and it will be looking into this matter. There are only district councils there with district offices.

Mr. Golding: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for telling me that. It makes the position more difficult, but I would have thought it worth considering the district council level, because it may be that lists could be displayed at district council offices and libraries in Northern Ireland.
I am doubtful whether it was wise to include the words "at such place" in the amendment because it gives an open cheque to the Secretary of State to designate only one place at which the register shall be kept.

Mrs. Hayman: May I interrupt my hon. Friend on that point? Although I admit that the drafting of the amendment may give some concern, and while I share my hon. Friend's concern about giving carte blanche—I learned that also in a State school—to the Secretary of State, he will find that the words in the amendment are:
and at such place or places in Northern Ireland …".
We have, therefore, given ourselves a little leeway. It does not refer necessarily to one place.

Mr. Golding: It is rather like my asking one of my sons "Will you wash one plate or plates?"

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: I find my hon. Friend's criticism of the amendment extraordinary as he is one of its sponsors. Did he not notice the point of which he complains when he was agreeing with my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn


and Hatfield (Mrs. Hayman) and myself in drafting the amendment? Indeed, he engaged in very close, in some cases intimate, conversations on the ways in which we could improve the Bill. I am surprised at such discourtesy—if I may use such a strong expression—from my hon. Friend in making this criticism of my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn and Hatfield and myself. He could have expressed himself with a great deal more courtesy then he has shown this morning—

The Chairman: Order. I appreciate that we are in Committee, but the hon. Gentleman's interventions seem to get longer and longer.

Mr. Golding: I think that those who read the report of my speech will see that in an early part of it, when my hon. Friend the Member for Ormskirk left the Chamber, I explained patiently and courteously that as a result of the.speeches which he and my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn and Hatfield had made I had come to realise that we had perhaps worded the amendment incorrectly. I had not intended to be discourteous to my hon. Friends in any way. That is why, when my hon. Friend was out of the Chamber, I dealt at some length with the reasons why I was in the process of changing my mind.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ormskirk said that I had a wide knowledge of Northern Ireland. That is not so. I would not make such a claim. I have visited that country from time to time and I have appreciated the difficulties of communications there, even during the good times. I do not think it would be satisfactory at the present time for the Secretary of State to require that the register must be at Belfast. He would be bound to ensure that if copies of the register were to be found in Belfast or Londonderry they would be available in many other places as well.
When the Bill goes to another place it must be looked at very carefuly indeed with a view to improving the service available to people who are likely to purchase a hearing aid.

Mrs. Dunwoody: Will my hon. Friend accept that it may be that in another place some of the amendments which

have not been selected here may find themsalves on the Paper?

The Chairman: Order. It would be remarkable if they did, because they are beyond the scope of the Bill.

Mr. Golding: If we are to achieve our objective, there is one matter which the Government will have to take into account—namely, that the administration of the Act will be far more effective in Northern Ireland than in this country. Perhaps that is one good reason for having a fresh look at the precise wording of the amendment when these matters are considered in another place, with a view to introducing that better administration, since the Government would then have to turn their mind to amending the original Act for the rest of the United Kingdom.
I regret that interventions by my hon. Friends have made this speech rather longer than it would otherwise have been. However, perhaps they will contain themselves now so that, when we come to the debate on the clause as a whole, the important points which they addressed to me may be answered.

Mr. Concannon: We are indebted to my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding) and my other hon. Friends for giving the Bill such a searching examination, and I am sure that the 1½ million people of Northern Ireland will welcome the attention which it has been given, if they ever get to know about this debate. Unfortunately, with the present happenings in Northern Ireland I doubt that the debate will have the publicity which it deserves. One of the unfortunate features of the present situation there is that, by the time the various news media get round to important matters of this nature, important especially for the ordinary citizen in Northern Ireland, their space is usually filled with news of bombs, bullets and the rest.
At the outset, I must say how touched I was at the concern for my well-being shown by my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe (Mrs. Dunwoody).

Mrs. Dunwoody: It is very genuine.

Mr. Concannon: I know that it is, and I should never wish to think otherwise. My hon. Friend shows that concern whenever she meets me going through the


Lobby or walking outside. In passing, I should say that some time later today I shall be going back to Belfast and, if my hon. Friend is unable to come over as well, I shall be able to tell people what a searching examination the Bill has had in the House of Commons today.
I add my thanks also to my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, South (Mr. Pavitt), who unfortunately is not here today, since without his Private Member's Bill in 1968 we should not have had this opportunity to extend the benefit of this protection to the people of Northern Ireland. I have no qualms whatever about its extension to Northern Ireland. This is our opportunity to scrutinise the original Act and try to improve it, extending its operation to Northern Ireland.
When I catch up with him later on this afternoon, I shall tell the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) about this debate. I imagine that I shall be able to tell him about it earlier than he might learn of it by other means, and I know that he will be particularly pleased. He has expressed his regret at not being here today to pilot his Bill through Committee.
There has been some genuine concern in Northern Ireland not only for the hon. Member for Belfast, West but also for the hon. Member for Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder), who also is involved in the outcome of yesterday's elections for the Convention. I do not think we need worry about the hon. Gentleman's result today. I have no doubt that his majority in Down, North will be weighed in hundredweight sacks. I hope also that the hon. Member for Belfast, West will be successful today.
When the original Private Member's Bill was passed in 1968, it had for Northern Ireland by no means the significance that it has now. It was the Finance Act 1972 which gave the matter added significance in Northern Ireland, with the application of value added tax and other measures. There were very few dispensers in Northern Ireland—in fact, there still are very few—and the Act originally had virtually no impact. If things had been different, I am certain that a different course would have been taken. It was the Finance Act 1972 which had an unfair effect on people in Northern Ireland, because they were left out of the 1968 Act and had to pay extra for their hear-

ing aids, without the protection given to the rest of the United Kingdom.

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: I am interested in my hon. Friend's comments about the restrictions imposed on Northern Ireland under the original Act as a result of finance. We are now in a period of even greater financial stringency, with the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Government as a whole exhorting us all to cut down. Indeed, the absent Members sometimes to be seen on the benches opposite—those benches so desolate today—frequently exhort us to make massive cuts in public expenditure. Can my hon. Friend assure us that the present financial stringency will not apply to this Bill brought before the House by the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) and that no inhibitions will restrict its application to Northern Ireland?

12.15 p.m.

Mr. Concannon: My hon. Friend must have misunderstood what I said. I did not say that the trouble had anything to do with finance when the original Private Member's Bill was introduced in 1968. The matter of finance came in as a result of the Finance Act 1972, which meant that people in Northern Ireland had to pay VAT on their hearing aids, which people over here with bona fide entitlement did not have to pay. That state of affairs has continued since 1972, and we are now proposing to do something about it. The financial implications applied not in 1968 but in 1972.
The general question before us is the application of a code of practice to Northern Ireland, but the specific purpose of the amendment is to make the register more readily available to the public. No one could disagree with making the register public, and there is no objection to that purpose in Northern Ireland. I know that not only my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, West but dispensers and all concerned are looking forward keenly to the operation of the register there.
The code of practice is a stern code intended to maintain a high standard.

Mrs. Dunwoody: I hope that my hon. Friend, while acknowledging that, will look at the code further, since there are certain aspects of it which we shall hope to discuss on another occasion, with a view to tightening it up. Although it was


originally drafted in such a way as to apply a stringent code of conduct, there are loopholes in it.

The Chairman: Order. Before the Minister replies, I must remind the Committee that we are discussing not a general code of practice but the question whether the register is to be kept at a place or places in Northern Ireland.

Mr. Concannon: I do not know whether those strictures were aimed at me, Mr. Thomas, but I shall readily act on them. However, I am sure you will agree that some of the questions put to me ranged rather far. None the less, I at once accept your strictures and I shall now stick strictly to the amendment.
Although the maintenance of a register in Northern Ireland is a laudable aim, we at once come to the difficulty that under the original Act there is one register and it is kept in London. I think that a little earlier this morning we had the attendance of an hon. Member from Scotland, a member of the Scottish National Party, and I imagine that he, too, may have an interest in this question.

Mrs. Dunwoody: This is the whole point. I have to accept responsibility there because I was concerned with the original Bill, and I am certain that we made a great mistake. We should have designated all four capitals—Cardiff, Edinburgh, Belfast and London—as places where the register should be available so that people could more easily check the record. Precisely because we have discovered in the interim how sadly lacking the facility is, we are asking my hon. Friend to consider setting up a register in Northern Ireland.

Mr. Concannon: That is readily acceptable, but unfortunately the keeping of the register is not the responsibility of my Department or of the Department of Health and Social Security. The register is a matter for the dispensers themselves and the provision of additional registers will have to be made at their expense. Negotiations will have to be undertaken with them on the point, but I have no doubt that they will pay close attention to what has been said in the debate.
At the moment, without a register in Belfast people living there who want to know which dispensers are on the register

will, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme and my hon. Friend the Member for Ormskirk (Mr. Kilroy-Silk) pointed out, have to write to find out. Some people are better at writing letters than others, and some of our constituents are terrified at that prospect as they are terrified, perhaps, of using the telephone.
The problem is that we are simply extending the existing legislation to Northern Ireland. The imperfections in it will have to be discussed with other bodies, and they are self-financing. There is no Government finance in this matter. Those bodies impose their own levies and keep themselves going.

Mrs. Dunwoody: Surely it is in the interests of reputable dispensers to provide for these additional registers. Those dispensers supported the original Bill. If they are anxious to maintain a code of conduct, it would be in their interests that people should know that they were on the register. It is in their interests that the contents of the register should be widely available so that people know where to find a reputable dispenser.

Mr. Concannon: There is one unfortunate side effect with respect to Northern Ireland. Other events there today will completely swamp all publicity of our debate. I doubt whether we shall get even a small piece on an inside page of the newspapers. Nevertheless, this subject affects thousands of people in Northern Ireland. The events of the last six years probably mean that there is a higher proportion of people in Northern Ireland than anywhere else suffering from ear injuries.
I can assure my hon. Friends that we in the Department will do our best to ensure that this subject is publicised. There are magazines through which we can ensure that the facts reach the people there. Fortunately the matter has had some prepublicity thanks to the ceasefire, which gave us a chance to get other matters into the Press and across to the public.
I thank my hon. Friends for initiating the debate because it gives a better chance of getting over to the people in Northern Ireland that there will be a register of reputable firms and that they are the firms which should be patronised by people purchasing hearing aids. It has


given us a chance to tell people not to buy aids from doorstep salesmen but to go to reputable suppliers.
The people in Northern Ireland will have the difficulty of coming to London to see the register, but that problem will also face those living in Scotland and elsewhere. My Department will do its best to make sure that the people in Northern Ireland know who the reputable suppliers are, and the welfare organisations and community associations there will help in this.
In view of what I have said, I hope that my hon. Friend will not press her amendment. We can see the difficulties of the original legislation, and Private Members' Bills from as far back as 1968 have helped to highlight the anomalies. We know from our constituency experience that this legislation has been a great boon to those wanting hearing aids. The problems of buying hearing aids on hire purchase one day and of their conking out next day seem to have disappeared, and we hope that they disappear quickly in Northern Ireland too.

Mrs. Hayman: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister for his very detailed and understanding reply to the amendment. I still feel some concern about the matter, however. I feel that in their generous approach to the Bill the Government have been motivated simply by the VAT considerations. I understand that they are in a difficulty. They have given an extra-statutory but temporary exemption from VAT for Northern Ireland. Obviously their move will need the backing of legislation so that they can simplify and legitimise what they are doing. We should all be very grateful for what they have done in the meantime.
As the Minister pointed out, the main and perhaps the obvious concern in seeking to extend the Bill to Northern Ireland concerns the application of VAT to hearing aids since the Finance Act 1972. The point of the amendment, however, was to make sure that the Government did not take too narrow a view of the Bill. The Hearing Aid Council Act was not designed to deal with the question of VAT—

The Chairman: Order. The hon. Lady may be able to make those points on Third Reading. I should be grateful

if she would confine herself now to the question of registration.

Mrs. Hayman: I apologise Mr. Thomas. I was merely trying to relate my concern in moving the amendment to what seems to be the Government's concern.
I believe it is of great importance that the register should be available in Northern Ireland. That is the spirit of the amendment and of the whole extension of the Act to Northern Ireland. We want to make sure that the consumer protection element is paramount. We do not simply want to legitimise what the Government are doing. We want to give the consumer in Northern Ireland protection as good as that enjoyed by the consumer in other parts of the United Kingdom.
I accept that there are defects in the original Act, and I accept, too, that in seeking to have the register made available in Northern Ireland we are seeking also to give the consumer there better treatment than is meted out in Scotland or Wales, but I see nothing wrong in that. Our objective is to extend the facilities to Northern Ireland without perpetuating the original defects which allowed the council and the register to operate simply from London.
12.30 p.m.
I am concerned that the attitude seems to be that we should have the lowest common denominator of standards for the consumer rather than the highest. I should like to see Northern Ireland taking the lead in this area, having a better standard of protection for the consumer and dragging us up by our boot-straps, to make sure that there is similar provision for all the people of Great Britain.
My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding) made the valuable suggestion that, not only in Northern Ireland but throughout the country, local authorities' consumer protection centres and weights and measures offices should be the places to keep such a register. The information would be much more accessible there.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister for saying that he will look into the question of how the information should be made available and that he will perhaps initiate discussions with the Hearing Aid Council on how it can be


made available in Northern Ireland. Perhaps it would be appropriate to bring in some of his ministerial colleagues to examine the situation in this country.
My hon. Friend spoke of the question of money, saying that the council, which is responsible for the upkeep of the register, was self-financing. Unfortunately, the amendment in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe (Mrs. Dunwoody) was not selected. That would have eased the council's financial position and perhaps made it easier for it to provide this service.
I said at the beginning that in many ways the amendment was a probing amendment, and I do not want to press it. I ask, however, for an assurance that my hon. Friend will at least have discussions with the council on how the register will be made available for consumers in Northern Ireland. I do not want the Bill to extend the Act to Northern Ireland simply to get the Government out of a bit of a jam on VAT and not to protect the consumer as well as we should like to see him protected.

Mr. Coacannon: I can only be responsible for the Northern Ireland aspect of the matter. I shall be in touch with the dispensers to see how we can get the extra publicity over to the people of Northern Ireland, without opening any further doors or getting any of my colleagues into more trouble there. There is a special problem with regard to the people in Northern Ireland, but I shall see what we can do.

Mrs. Hayman: The Bill has yet to go to another place, and it will be possible to make an amendment there if that should seem appropriate. I have been much reassured by the spirit in which my hon. Friend has tackled the problem of the help that I know he wants to give to the consumer in Northern Ireland. Some of my fears on the matter have been quieted, though I hope that I have not been lulled into a false sense of security. I hope that we shall see offices in Northern Ireland which extend a full range of protection to the consumer, and that we may follow the example of Northern Ireland.
We have had a useful discussion. My hon. Friend has rightly made the point

that if we can secure publicity for that discussion people will be made more aware of the existence of the Hearing Aid Council, of the need for dispensers to register with it and of the penalties that can be imposed on people pretending to be registered dispensers.
In view of my hon. Friend's assurance, and the understanding way in which he has dealt with the problem, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mrs. Hayman: I beg to move Amendment No. 8, in page 2, line 6, leave out
'unless they otherwise expressly provide'.
This, too, is in many ways a probing amendment. I cannot understand why the words were inserted in the first place. I do not see what circumstances might arise in which we would wish, as a legislative chore, expressly to provide that Northern Ireland should not enjoy the same benefits as the rest of the United Kingdom. I do not see in what circumstances rules would be formulated, or would have been formulated, providing that the benefits should not extend to Northern Ireland.
We know that the protection in the Act is not satisfactory, and that we should all be seeing how we can strengthen the original Act. But a theme of our debate this morning has been that we are extremely anxious that every scrap of protection existing in Great Britain for the person unfortunate enough to need to purchase a hearing aid should also be available to consumers in Northern Ireland.
On the other side of the coin, the regulations, the examinations and the training of dispensers of hearing aids in Northern Ireland should be just as scrupulous as they are elsewhere.
Sharks and charlatans have made a great deal of money out of people's suffering by the sale of phoney devices. The penalties for people who pretend to be registered dispensers, who call themselves all sorts of pseudo-medical names to give the impression that they are giving the right advice, when they are selling dud appliances should be just as strict in Northern Ireland as they are elsewhere. Many of us are concerned because the penalties have not risen with


the cost of living, and people can perhaps accept them as part of their expenses when they are running a profitable but shameful business of the sort with which we are dealing.
It would be a great shame if we allowed the words to provide a loophole which resulted in the citizens of Northern Ireland not receiving the same protection as those in the rest of the country, the charlatans of Northern Ireland being able to get away with lesser penalties, or registered dispensers in Northern Ireland not being subject to the same training and examinations as registered dispensers in this country. I fear that the words were perhaps inserted because of the lack of training facilities in Northern Ireland. I understand the difficulty that these courses are not being run there and that the proper examining facilities do not exist.

Mrs. Dunwooody: It is important to understand that the Hearing Aid Council is not a training body. Therefore, it cannot provide for training in Northern Ireland. It provides examinations to ensure that people accepted for registration have a certain background.

Mrs. Hayman: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's elucidation. I was aware of the situation. Although the examinations are approved by the council, it does not train operatives or dispensers. There is, however, a lacuna in training in Northern Ireland and that could possibly be one reason why the words which I propose to leave out have been inserted in the Bill.
But this is not the right way to tackle the problem. We should make sure that courses are available in Northern Ireland, that training opportunities exist and that the council can set examinations for the few but important dispensers operating in Northern Ireland and can take steps against the fraudulent and the charlatans.
It would be folly for us to allow a loophole through which inadequate services may be provided in Northern Ireland by letting these words remain in the Bill instead of tackling the more difficult problem—and I accept that it is much more difficult—of resources and organisation which has been made particularly difficult by the changes envisaged in the local authority structure in Northern Ireland.
It would be a mistake to let this phrase remain in the Bill. A coach and horses could he driven through it. I am, however, willing to listen to any explanation which may be given justifying its inclusion in the Bill. I cannot see any justification for it. In my scepticism and distrust, I fear that it may be a way of excusing shortcomings in the services which we are providing for citizens in Northern Ireland. I am sure that my hon. Friends who represent Belfast would not wish that to happen, nor would the Minister. I shall be pleased to hear what my hon. Friend has to say on the amendment.

Mrs. Dunwoody: I am most anxious for a very simple reason that the amendment should be accepted. One of the absurdities of the House of Commons is that we frequently put on the statute book legislation which ordinary people are not capable of understanding and which excludes quite large portions of the British Isles. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn and Hatfield (Mrs. Hayman), who moved the amendment so ably, will forgive me if I point out that one of the terrifying things which can happen to politicians is a game played by an able group of gentlemen called parliamentary draftsmen. They present to Ministers in all Departments beautifully written legislation which is phrased in the obscure English of long-gone 17th century lawyers. An even more terrifying thing is to stand at the Dispatch Box and hear every lawyer in the House, every learned Member of that noble profession, ask why the Minister has not phrased his Bill in much simpler terms.
12.45 p.m.
I am, therefore, anxious that we should not, even by default, leave in the Bill wording of the sort which the amendment proposes to leave out. If we were to do anything today, I should have hoped that we could pass on to Northern Ireland a Bill which was amended so that the code of practice, for example, could have been considerably tightened. I understand that there are only about 15 dispensers in Northern Ireland and that that was the reason why they were originally excluded from the legislation. However, they are absolutely vital to the operation of this legislation. We want


to be absolutely certain that the standards which they have achieved make them suitable vendors of hearing aid equipment.
The nominal sum of £1 is paid for the inclusion on the register of firms employing dispensers. It is essential that the people whose names are inscribed on it should have a high standard of professional practice. They must be properly trained. It must be possible, if necessary, to bring them to justice if they violate the code of conduct, and it must be possible to fine them. The fines laid down in the Act probably are not appropriate today in view of the fall in the value of money. They are no longer the punitive fines which they were originally intended to be.
I had hoped that we should be able to change that today, just as I hoped that we would have done something about the problem in this country of firms which do not adhere to the code of practice, which advertise widely in local and national newspapers and which, once they have sold equipment not of the standard required by the code of practice, disappear or go bankrupt only to open again very shortly in a different area with the same directors perpetuating the con tricks which they use against people on the doorstep. We have had time to discover the abuses which the code does not cover as well as the abuses which it does cover—

The Deputy Chairman: (Mr. Oscar Murton): Order. I remind the hon. Lady that the Chairman has previously warned her about straying into making a Second Reading speech. I fear that the same is happening again.

Mrs. Dunwoody: I am sure that you will forgive me, Mr. Murton, but, having had a Welsh father and an Irish mother, my emotional commitment to a matter as important as this is such that occasionally, in my womanly way, I stray outside the rules of order. It is, I regret to say, a sign that even the ignorant and uneducated can occasionally get themselves elected to the House of Commons. I speak fervently for that group.
Northern Ireland, even if it has only 15 dispensers, must he protected in the

same way as Great Britain has been protected. It is a measure of our incompetence that we have taken so long to extend the legislation. It is extremely sad that we shall not pass on a better and improved Bill rather than the legislation which we have already learned has caused problems. I shall hope to catch your eye, Mr. Murton, on another occasion so that I may go further into the question of the abuses.
I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will not feel moved to say, as so many of us have said when in his position, that what is required is legal phraseology. Northern Ireland needs this legislation, with a code of conduct which is tightly drawn, to protect the consumer.

Mr. Golding: I was sorry to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe (Mrs. Dunwoody) receive her second booking this morning, Mr. Murton. I only hope she is not sent off. My hon. Friends and I are relying on her very heavily because of her experience as one of the Ministers who piloted the original Bill. I must plead with the Chair to show forbearance with my hon. Friend. It is clear that when a Minister has piloted legislation through the House, he or she will feel very strongly about any defects which might later appear in it.
My hon. Friends the Members for Welwyn and Hatfield (Mrs. Hayman) and Crewe have spoken eloquently to the amendment. Perhaps it was natural that they should have appealed to feminine weakness, but I must draw attention to the feminine strength with which they have pleaded the emotional case. However, I do not want to argue in terms of natural justice. I want to consider the actual wording of the Bill and to ask the Minister why it was necessary to have the clause in the Bill in the first place.
I see that you are studying the Bill assiduously, Mr. Murton. No doubt you will be looking at Clause 1(3), which reads:
Any rules—
(a) which have been made, or approved under the said Act by the Lord Chancellor; and
(b) which are in force immediately before the commencement of this Act,
shall, unless they otherwise expressly provide, extend to Northern Ireland.


Perhaps I should have prefaced that quotation by saying that Clause 1(2) reads:
In its application to Northern Ireland, the said Act shall have effect subject to the following modifications".
A suspicious man or woman would immediately ask "Why the modification?" That is what my two hon. Friends have done. They have done so in an intuitive manner befitting the female of the species. They did so very effectively, but, not surprisingly they did not sharpen up the question which has to be asked of my hon. Friend the Minister—namely, "What rules are we talking about?"
My hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn and Hatfield spoke of hypothetical rules. Perhaps the difference between the species is that I have the actual rules in my hand—namely, Statutory Instrument 1971 No. 754, the Hearing Aid Council Disciplinary Committee (Procedure) Rules Approval Instrument 1971. The rules were made on 3rd May 1971 and came into operation on 1st June 1971. I shall refer to them shortly but before doing so perhaps I should give notice that the other statutory instrument of importance is No. 755 of 1971, the Hearing Aid Council (Disciplinary Proceedings) Legal Assessor Rules 1971. The rules were made on 3rd May 1971 and came into operation on 1st June 1971. Those are the statutory instruments to which the Bill refers.
It would have been better, although perhaps it could not be done for a reason I shall come to later, if it had been made clear that those are the rules we are talking about. It could be that there are other relevant statutory instruments, but those are the only ones I have been able to trace. I have it on good advice that those are the rules referred to in the Bill, and the only rules. The importance of establishing this will become clearer later in my argument.
If that is the position, the first question that must be asked is whether it would be justified in any way to exclude Northern Ireland. I do not intend to read the whole of Statutory instrument No. 754. However, it is necessary to refer to the headings and to establish its general nature and purpose so as to give the Committee an idea of whether there should be any exclusion. Statutory

Instrument No. 754 established the procedural rules for the Hearing Aid Council Disciplinary Committee. In Section A of the statutory instrument, which was signed on 3rd May by Lord Hailsham of St. Marylebone, the establishment is dealt with of investigating and disciplinary committees. The general remit of both committees is laid down.

Mrs. Dunwoody: I hope that my hon. Friend will forgive me if I draw his attention to an important omission in that remit. The 1968 Bill was based on the fact that the presence of the Trade Descriptions Act 1968 on the statute book would give sufficient protection to the customer from those who misused advertising in terms of deaf aids. It was considered that they would not be able to include anything other than the absolute truth in the wording of their advertisements.
Does not my hon. Friend accept that it should now be possible for the investigating committee to consider advertisements as well as other aspects of the code of conduct? There is clear evidence that firms are continually getting round the Trade Descriptions Act by using such obscure and semi-scientific language in their advertisements that the trading standards department is loth to take action against them.

1.0 p.m.

Mr. Golding: My hon. Friend is taking advantage of you, Mr. Murton. Were I to reply to her intervention, I should be making myself liable for a first booking this morning. I shall deal with my hon. Friend's point when we come to the Question "That the clause stand part of the Bill". However, it would be quite improper for me to deal with it in discussing this amendment.

Mrs. Dunwoody: Perhaps I might intervene again to point out to my hon. Friend that, since Mrs. Murton is a very charming lady, I have no intention of taking advantage of you, Mr. Murton.

Mr. Golding: I accept that correction from my hon. Friend and I offer my apologies to you, Mr. Murton.
I was drawing attention to the rules which are referred to in the subsection. They provide for such matters as the quorums which the investigating committee and the disciplinary committee require


for their meetings. The quorum for the investigating committee is three; that for the disciplinary committee is five. But is it suggested in this form of words that such quorums could be varied, for example, in Northern Ireland? Could the Government say that they did not want these rules to apply in Northern Ireland? This is a matter about which we expect a reply from the Minister.
Section B of the rules is headed
The Hearing Aid Council Disciplinary Committee (Procedure) Rules 1971",
and the first part deals with the citation and interpretation. Again, I ask whether we are to have different interpretations in Northern Ireland. Would it be possible for there to be a separate interpretation of who was to be the chairman, or separate interpretations of what was meant in the regulations by "the Committee", "the complainant", "the Council", a "disciplinary case" or an "inquiry"? If it were, I suggest that that would be quite improper.
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn and Hatfield, I think that in this case the parliamentary draftsman has gone too far in erring on the side of reserving everything to the State. It has to be said of Part II about preliminary proceedings, of Part III about disciplinary cases and the procedure upon postponement of judgment, of Part IV about the removal of the name of a body corporate from the register under Section 7(3) of the Act. It is true of Part V above of the restoration of names after erasure and of the general powers in Part VI. The same can also be said about the form of notice of proceedings for the purpose of Section 10 of the Hearing Aid Council Act 1968 which appears in the appendix.
In Statutory Instrument No. 754 we have a set of rules establishing that the Hearing Aid Council shall act according to the rules of natural justice. That is what we are discussing when we talk about Statutory Instrument No. 754. Is it really suggested that in arty way the rules of natural justice should be suspended in Northern Ireland in this respect? I submit that that would be quite undesirable.
Having said that, I have to correct myself, and in doing so perhaps I might

correct my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe, because it was she who introduced the subject of the parliamentary draftsman in the first place.
We are considering a Private Member's Bill, and on reflection I feel that it would be quite wrong to attack the parliamentary draftsman for the wording contained in the Bill. I ought perhaps to say in the absence of the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) that in this respect he was badly advised by legal advisers. It may be that the Minister will confirm later that the second thoughts which I have had this morning are correct and will, through you, Mr. Murton, convey my apologies to the parliamentary draftsman for having criticised him unfairly. I am sure, too, that were she to get the opportunity, my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe on this occasion at least would wish to be associated with me.

Mrs. Dunwoody: I hope my hon. Friend will accept that I was making a general point. I am afraid that on that general point I do not feel that we should underestimate the power or strength of the parliamentary draftsmen. As I said, they are an extremely able and talented group of men and I would not dream of suggesting that in this instance they have not expressed their intentions in the simplest and most straightforward terms. However, I have found on past occasions that in my view the law could have been written in simpler terms.

Mr. Golding: That shows once again how reluctant my hon. Friend is to associate herself with the softness of approach which I try to adopt on these occasions.
I turn now to Statutory Instrument No. 755, the Hearing Aid Council (Disciplinary Proceedings) Legal Assessor Rules 1971. The point that I made in respect of Statutory Instrument No. 754 applies with equal force to Statutory Instrument No. 755. Again I refrain from reading it in full, although it is not a lengthy document. Again it provides interpretations, and it lays duties on a legal assessor to be present at all proceedings before the disciplinary committee relating to the refusal or failure to enter a person's name on the register, the removal of a person's name from the register or the restoration of the name of a person whose name has been removed from the register, and to


advise the committee on any questions of law and the admission of evidence arising in the proceedings which the committee may refer to him. I believe that it would be equally right for that to apply to Northern Ireland as to the rest of the United Kingdom.
Why should Northern Ireland be excluded? On reflection, that question need not have been asked in the first place. Perhaps it would have been quicker for me to have revealed what I suggest a study of the documents would reveal to anybody—namely, that those two statutory instruments do not provide for the exclusion of Northern Ireland. Why should they? They were drawn up following an Act which expressly excluded Northern Ireland. Therefore, the orders themselves excluded Northern Ireland.
I think that we can ignore Clause 1(3)(a) referring to any rules
which have been made, or approved, under the said Act by the Lord Chancellor".
But that leads to a question which would arise in the mind of any reasonable woman or man. If this has no meaning for any rules in being at present, is there a thought that some rules are being drafted which would come into force before the passing of this Bill? I think that that would be the significance of Clause 1(3)(b). I am surprised that my hon. Friends the Members for Crewe and for Welwyn and Hatfield did not notice that the rules have not only to be made or approved but to be
in force immediately before the commencement of this Act".
Is it possible that new rules are being drafted? I ask the Minister to enlighten us on that point. If he tells us that no rules are being drafted and that there is no intention of bringing in new rules under the parent Act before the passing of this Bill, what is the point of the words
unless they otherwise expressly provide"?
If there are no rules anywhere which "otherwise expressly provide", we must leave them. But we must ask why those words have been put there. It seems to us that they are quite superfluous.
I agree with my hon. Friends that the rules relating to Northern Ireland must be similar to those applying to the rest of the United Kingdom because the situa-

tion for those dispensing and purchasing is the same.
I do not rest my argument this morning entirely on that point. I argue from the point of view of the rules and the necessity for the words to which reference has been made. In that way I have managed to avoid a booking.

1.15 p.m.

Mr. Concannon: Again, I am indebted to my hon. Friends for probing this matter and giving me a chance to explain the situation.
The words
unless they otherwise expressly provide
were put into the Bill after a great deal of thought. The hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt)—I hope he has now got through the first count—is wise in Northern Ireland affairs. He has been a Belfast city councillor, he was on the Executive and now presumably he will be a member of the Convention. He is well versed in the ways of Northern Ireland, of some of the Acts which appertain to that Province but not to Britain, and of other matters which appertain to Britain but not to Northern Ireland.
A great deal of thought went into this matter. There was a good deal of preplanning before these words were inserted into the Bill. I am not trying to make any excuses. The words were not put into the Bill for any ulterior motive. I understand my hon. Friends' worries about such words being put in to defeat the object of the Bill. However, they have entirely the opposite intention.
The amendment, if carried, would make the subsection read:
(3) Any rules—
(a) which have been made, or approved, under the said Act by the Lord Chancellor; and
(b) which are in force immediately before the commencement of this Act,
shall … extend to Northern Ireland
Therefore, if the words
unless they otherwise expressly provide
are not in the Bill, everything within the rules will automatically apply to Northern Ireland.
To be honest, there might not even be any reason for these words being in the Bill. But I think that the hon. Member for Belfast, West was prudent in putting them in in case in future there might


be reasons for a difference in Northern Ireland. Basically, they were put in not to weaken the Bill but to strengthen the various laws, and so on, which might be made concerning Northern Ireland.

Mrs. Dunwoody: We accept that that is the intention behind the Bill, as my hon. Friend so kindly explained. However, does he accept that this degree of flexibility is also capable of being used in the opposite direction? In other words, if by some mischance there were some tightening up of the rules on the code of conduct in this country which was not acceptable to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, it could be that, yet again, Northern Ireland would be excluded. We should then have the anomalous situation of having improved conditions for consumers here but made them worse in Northern Ireland.

Mr. Concannon: One would have to write Northern Ireland out of those rules. This is where the Lord Chancellor would come in. The rules have to go to the Lord Chancellor for his approval or rejection. In that respect the Bill would cover Northern Ireland. But there are other aspects on which the hon. Member for Belfast, West was keen to have protection in Northern Ireland.
As things are now, I could not argue that that was so. Obviously the hon. Member for Belfast, West is putting in a longstop to be absolutely sure that we do not have to keep coming back here if we find an anomaly in Northern Ireland which requires us to bring in amending legislation. With these words we can make the alteration to the rules if necessary, and that is what the hon. Member for Belfast, West wants. It is not a matter of making excuses or of having any ulterior motive.
I think it would be as well if I were to go through those parts of the 1968 Act which will protect the people of Northern Ireland. It provides in Section 5 for the Hearing Aid Council to set up an investigating committee, and it says in subsection (3):
The Council shall make rules as to the constitution of the Investigating Committee, which shall not come into force until approved by the Lord Chancellor.
That was the point that I made earlier. Any rules cannot come into force until

the Lord Chancellor has seen and agreed them.
Section 6 says that the council shall set up a disciplinary committee, but, again, any rules made under this section shall not come into force until they are approved by the Lord Chancellor. All the rules have to be approved by him.
Section 10 of the Act provides for the council to make rules for the procedure to be followed by the disciplinary committee, and also the rules of evidence to be observed in the proceedings before it, but these have to be approved by the Lord Chancellor and may he modified by him.
Section 11 provides for there to be an assessor to the disciplinary committee, the rules as to the functions of which are to be made by the Lord Chancellor.
Some of the Lord Chancellor's rules relate to legal institutions in England. Some of the legal institutions in Northern Ireland are different, and it would be absurd to extend all the rules to them. This is where the hon. Member for Belfast, West was being so prudent when he drafted the Bill.
Some of the rules made by the council—and the rules themselves are not statutory instruments—will require a certain amount of modification before they can be applied to Northern Ireland. The council itself will be able to amend these rules before the Bill comes into effect. Even if we pass the Bill today, some of the rules already in existence and appertaining to England will have to be modified before they can be applied to Northern Ireland. The council will modify the rules and they will then go before the Lord Chancellor to be agreed before they can be applied to Northern Ireland.
One can see here the wisdom of having these words in the Bill. They strengthen, not weaken, the position of people in Northern Ireland. They strengthen the arm of the Lord Chancellor and everybody concerned in Northern Ireland, and they back up what my hon. Friends have been saying.
I hope that I have said enough to convince my hon. Friends that this will help to get over to the people in Northern Ireland what is being done. The rules are there, and they will be strengthened, not weakened, by these words being in the Bill. I hope that my hon. Friends


will accept what I have said. Had the hon. Member for Belfast, West been here, he would have explained this provision in the Northern Ireland context much better than I have been able to do it.
I assure my hon. Friends that the hon. Member for Belfast, West and his advisers in Northern Ireland gave a good deal of thought to these words before they were included in the Bill. I repeat that their purpose is to strengthen, not to weaken, the position in Northern Ireland. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn and Hatfield (Mrs. Hayman) will accept what I have said in the spirit in which I have said it. I shall put her misgivings to the hon. Member for Belfast, West when I meet him later this afternoon in Belfast, and if there is any doubt about what is being done I am sure that as soon as he returns to the House he will contact my hon. Friend and explain the position to her.

Mrs. Hayman: The Minister is too modest when he says that he has not given as full an explanation of the situation as the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) would have done for including these words in the Bill. He was most persuasive, and it is now difficult to decide whether these words should be included in the Bill. He argued most persuasively that these words will strengthen the position of the people in Northern Ireland in relation to the Hearing Aid Council Act, but when I listened to my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding) I became even more concerned about the import of these words.
My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme was right, and I was mortified when he looked at my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe (Mrs. Dunwoody) and myself and said that we had acted instinctively in our opposition to these words. Perhaps we have not done our homework in as assiduous a way as he and the Minister have and have acted from feminine instinct, with a feminine distrust of words such as these which appear to be superfluous and yet give an option, or provide a loophole, an escape route, in legislation of this kind. My hon. Friend the Member for Crewe stated her deep-rooted distrust of lawyers' language and phrases such as this being added to legislation.
My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme spoke about the rules and statutory instruments that exist. As he said, if Northern Ireland is not already expressly excluded from these provisions—and it would not be, because the original Act does not extend to Northern Ireland—it would be pointless expressly to exclude it. Are some rules being drawn up which, before the Bill comes into force, either will or will not apply expressly to Northern Ireland? My hon. Friend's speech made me feel that my instinct was right, and it was backed by research into this matter.
But then I listened to my hon. Friend the Minister and heard his assurances. He argued persuasively that these words would not have been included if they did not have a purpose—a longstop purpose perhaps, but a purpose that will he wholly beneficial to the consumer in Northern Ireland.
It is on that basis that I am reconsidering the importance of pressing the amendment. If that longstop is necessary, if it could on occasion be found that the rules referred to judicial institutions in this country which are different from those in Northern Ireland, it would be folly to have to come back to the House expressly to prevent a totally ludicrous and inapposite reference being applied to Northern Ireland.
On the other hand, it is a source of considerable concern that again and again we see the Government creepingly getting more and more power into their administrative decisions. We find words such as these being inserted in a Bill so that the Government will not have to come back to the House each time they wish to change what was the will of the House.
No one wants to be pendantic about this. No one wants to create a ridiculous situation. My views about the hours during which the House sits are well known. It would be highly inappropriate of me to try to put more work on the legislature if what is needed could be done efficiently by statutory instrument, by rules or by the Lord Chancellor approving what the Hearing Aid Council suggests in a situation such as this. We already have a tremendous amount of legislation before us, to say nothing


of the need to scrutinise properly a considerable amount of EEC legislation. We should consider how to lessen the burden, not increase it, but we should not go too far the other way and give the executive so much power that it can alter any provisions without returning to Parliament.
However, we are dealing with honourable men, and this kind of longstop could be necessary. The differences in law and institutions in Northern Ireland may need to be recognised in this way so as to allow sensible administrative decisions to be taken without unnecessary debate. I have been torn between what I have heard in this debate, which accords with my own instinctive dislike of "let-outs" like this, and the Minister's assurances. The hon. Member for Belfast, West included these words only after long consideration, and the Minister has told us that they are sensible. We wanted to air this matter by discussing the amendment, and we are grateful to the Minister for the depth of his reply. It is only right, therefore, to accept what he has said.
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

1.30 p.m.

Mrs. Dunwoody: Clause 1 is the heart of the Bill, encompassing as it does many important aspects of the working of the Hearing Aid Council. When the original Act was passed, it was not envisaged that loopholes should remain to be exploited by unscrupulous people, but it has become clear that the code of conduct was not sufficiently tightly drawn. I should have hoped that we could have amended the existing Act before passing on to Northern Ireland legislation which has been found wanting, even if only marginally.
In several cases, small firms have widely advertised "hearing aid exhibitions", perhaps in a church hall. People who have bought what they subsequently find is inferior equipment and wish to get redress, then find that the firm has disappeared. If the council cannot deal

with that situation, we should amend the legislation before it leaves this House. The council has tried to tackle the problem of the "bankrupt" firm which rises again the next week like a phoenix.

The Chairman: I am sorry to interrupt, but it is only to help the hon. Lady. We cannot discuss now the amending of the original Act. The Bill is intended merely to apply the Act to Northern Ireland.

Mrs. Dunwoody: I accept your reprimand, Mr. Thomas. My life is full of chastening experiences today. I have no doubt of the warmth and kindness of your intentions towards me, ever, though they mainfest themselves sometimes in the harshest fashion.
One of my reasons for tabling so many amendments was that the penalties are far too low. Also, when VAT exemption is involved, people should attain professional standards. We cannot pass on the Bill to Northern Ireland without considering this and other aspects.
For example, the Hearing Aid Council is an examining body which has no training courses. Since he did not cover the point originally, I hope that the Minister will tell us how he views the problem of Northern Ireland firms which are registered in Eire. What will be the position of firms whose representatives arrive on a doorstep without sufficient testing equipment? If they are registered in Fire, will they be able to operate as too many firms operated before the original Act came into force in Britain, simply by saying that they have the necessary equipment, audiograms and so on, and repair facilities over the border? The incestuous relationship between Northern Ireland and Eire will not be enough to protect the customer if those on the register do not have proper back-up faciliites. The consumer cannot be protected unless the highest standards of professional practice are observed.
Some dispensers, for instance, have taken on trainees who do not complete their training, are used primarily as salesmen and leave before they are trained. We should restrict the number of trainees allowed under the council's code of conduct.
On the other hand, this is a definite step forward for Northern Ireland. Although,


as has been said, there are only 15 dispensers there at present, those should be put on a register. I must repeat that I believe that the register should be available not merely in London but also in Northern Ireland.
I should like the Government to use a small portion of the moneys they have in order to publicise the existence of the register. I should like the Northern Ireland newspapers, if not in their editorial columns at least in their advertisement columns, to carry news of the existence of the Northern Ireland Hearing Aid Council by advertisements placed by Her Majesty's Government. Those advertisements should state very simply "From the passing of this Bill Northern Ireland will now be covered by the same sort of safeguards as Great Britain has had since 1968. The register will exist at such-and such a place. If you want to know what is in it, you may write to the above address and obtain information, free of charge, which will enable you to know whether the firm with which you are dealing is reputable."
This is tremendously important. For some bizarre reason, hearing aids remain of one of the few medical and semi-medical aids which are bought through commercial units, many of which are still not of the high standard that one would like them to be.
That was why the original Bill was so essential, and it is why this extension to Northern Ireland is essential—ignoring the whole problem of VAT. It is why I hope that the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt), who has the best interests of his constituents in Northern Ireland at heart, will seek actively to promote publicity about this register.
It seems sometimes that those who most need this kind of protection are unable to get it. The working-class woman who answers the door and finds a very plausible salesman there and buys from him at very considerable cost—we must emphasise that we are talking not of small sums but of quite large sums in many instances—will commit herself to payment of a large sum over a period of months. She ought to know that she can check with a Government source whether the salesman is a respectable salesman who will give after-sales service, look after the aid when it has gone wrong and perform all the

correct services in relation to a medical aid.
Unfortunately, the National Health Service still does not provide the attractive aids that people sometimes want to buy for themselves, although it provides aids of a very high standard. One can understand the psychological need for people who have partial hearing or who are even profoundly deaf to have an aid which is not ugly and immediately disfiguring and which, in a sense, declares their disablement to the world. While it is possible for modern commerce to produce such simple and attractive aids as the aid in the end of the spectacle arm, which can easily be tucked away, it is very important that those services should nevertheless carry with them a medical standard. This is wholly defensible in the interest of consumers.
My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will be concerned very much with these aspects of the clause, with the code of conduct and with the facilities that we shall be providing in Northern Ireland. I welcome the extension, and I wish that the original Act had extended these advantages to Northern Ireland. I wish that we had then envisaged some of the difficulties and had dealt with them, thus avoiding the present situation with all its loopholes.
I hope that on a later occasion we can bring forward a small Bill dealing with the problems in the clause, extending the protection and making it possible for the Hearing Aid Council to deal with the whole problem of advertisements for aids, which are still not of a sufficiently high standard, giving even greater protection to the person who reads the beautiful glowing account of how different their life will be once they have bought so-and-so's aid. I hope that when that time comes my hon. Friend the Minister, on behalf of Northern Ireland, will be able to accept such amendments because he believes that it is only by improving matters in the whole of Great Britain that we shall improve the lot of the consumer.

1.45 p.m.

Sir Anthony Meyer: I have been present for two-and-three quarter hours, mostly in the Chamber, listening to the proceedings from the microphone so very conveniently placed behind the Chair which enables one to


overhear what is being said without actually being seen. I have found the proceedings deeply instructive. However, I wonder how the general public, who do not have the advantage of being present here today, will make sense of the discussions which have been taking place in this Chamber. I wonder how relevant they will find what has been said to the discussion on a Private Member's Bill the sponsor of which is not even present. If the public contrive to make any sense whatever of today's proceedings, they will discern that what has been going on is a deliberate attempt by three hon. Members on the Government side of the Committee—who are normally held in very high esteem in Parliament—to prevent discussion on another topic on which they are particularly anxious to prevent discussion—in other words, to filibuster.

Mrs. Dunwoody: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Sir A. Meyer: I shall not give way. The hon. Lady has bored the Committee—

The Chairman: Order. The hon. Gentleman must take it from me that what has transpired today is in order, otherwise I should have been on my feet.

Sir A. Meyer: I have too much respect for your judgment, Mr. Thomas, ever to query that anything out of order has been permitted. Certainly nothing out of order has occurred. I am sure that you will extend the same liberal view of the rules of order to my intervention as you have extended to the repeated and sometimes tediously repetitious interventions of the three hon. Members on the Government back benches.

Mr. Golding: rose—

Sir A. Meyer: I shall not give way.

Mr. Golding: On a point of order, Mr. Thomas. To accuse hon. Members of tedious repetition in circumstances in which the occupant of the Chair has not raised such a matter on any occasion today amounts to an attack on the Chair, and one which must be resisted.

The Chairman: Order. I think that the hon. Member for Flint, West (Sir A. Meyer), whose feelings I am sure the Committee understands, must acknow-

ledge that if there had been tedious repetition it would have been corrected. It might have seemed like it to the hon. Gentleman but what matters is how it appears to the occupant of the Chair, and I did not consider it to be so.

Sir A. Meyer: I gladly withdraw the charge, Mr. Thomas. It merely struck me that the repetition was sometimes so tedious as to induce a certain mood of somnolence into the occupant of the Chair. However, I withdraw any imputatation I have made upon the Chair in this regard.
I propose to question why the matter of extending the Hearing Aid Council Act to Northern Ireland, and in particular the clause we are now discussing, should take precedence over, and should be regarded as a matter so much more deserving of the attention of Parliament than the need to ensure that at General Elections all those who are entitled to vote are enabled to do so. In the course of my speech I shall be compelled to balance the two considerations.

The Chairman: Order. It may save the hon. Gentleman from getting into trouble if I tell him that we must deal with what is before us. This is a Committee stage. We must go through the Bill with the amendments which have been selected and deal with them in order. The question of the representation of voters who are on holiday is not covered by this clause.

Mr. Golding: On a point of order, Mr. Thomas. Is it not correct that, if the hon. Member for Flint, West (Sir A. Meyer) had been here last Friday and had objected to this Bill being taken on the Floor of the House today, it would not have received precedence? The answer to the hon. Gentleman must be that he was absent last week when the matter was decided.

The Chairman: I would not know, because I was not here last Friday.

Sir A. Meyer: The last thing that I would wish to do would be to inhibit the extension of this valuable measure to Northern Ireland. I share hon. Members' desire that the 1968 Act should be extended to Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland is a province with more than its fair share of misfortune and it has been,


as the hon. Lady for Crewe (Mrs. Dunwoody) has frequently said today, discriminated against in certain matters. This Bill is designed to end one form of discrimination.
One respect in which Northern Ireland fares worse than the United Kingdom is in the very low number of people who turn out at elections, as was evidenced at the election for the Convention. This is why it is of the utmost importance, if only for the benefit of the people in the Province, that we do everything possible to extend the franchise and to ensure, for example, that those who have arranged to go on holidayperhaps to Northern Ireland for treatment—should be enabled to vote at General Elections.

The Chairman: Order. I should like to help the hon. Gentleman, but I am unable to do so. The establishment of the Hearing Aid Council in Northern Ireland will in no way affect the franchise.

Sir A. Meyer: At the last election I had a good deal of bother about Welsh-speaking voters who claimed that they were unable to find a polling station because the directions were not written up in Welsh. It occurs to me that there may be people in Northern Ireland who would be unable to take in verbal instruction as to how to get to the polling station.

The Chairman: Order. The hon. Gentleman has made a valiant effort hut, unfortunately, even the questions of Welsh polling booths and the franchise in Northern Ireland cannot be considered on this clause, no matter how much ingenuity the hon. Gentleman may exercise.

Sir A. Meyer: I am extremely grateful to you, Mr. Thomas, for your kindness and forbearance. I shall therefore sit down, having made the point that today we have witnessed one of the grossest of filibusters that it has ever been my misfortune to listen to. It is obvious that the Labour Party wishes to deprive as many people as possible of the vote because it thinks that the result might go against it at an election.

Mr. Golding: The hon. Member for Flint, West (Sir A. Meyer), having accused others of filibustering—a form of behaviour which is entirely outside the rules of order of the House and would

have been corrected by the Chair, and an accusation which is in itself a slight against the Chair—managed to get himself rebuked by the Chair twice for being out of order. Merely stating that fact draws attention to the hon. Gentleman's very lengthy intervention.
The Bill consists of Clauses 1 and 2. Clause 1 is more than half of the Bill and is the heart of the Bill. If we are to support the Bill at all, we must strongly support Clause 1. The 1968 Act did not extend to Northern Ireland. It provided for the establishment of a Hearing Aid Council responsible for professional standards and the registration of dispensers. Persons not regisiered are prohibited from acting as hearing aid dispensers.
Apart from meaning that persons purchasing or hiring hearing aids in Northren Ireland do not have the same protection as that afforded to people in Great Britain, the limitation of the 1968 Act to Great Britain means that people in Northern Ireland must pay VAT on their aids. This is because only medical and paramedical practitioners who are on statutory registers are exempt from VAT. Since 11th November 1974 VAT exemption has been granted extra-statutorily on the understanding that there would be legislation this Session. We on this side are anxious that this legislation should be passed this Session.
The purpose of Clause 1 is clear. It is to extend the 1968 Act to Northern Ireland. The extension will enable Northern Ireland dispensers to register with the council and thus enable them to claim exemption from VAT. The hard of hearing in Northern Ireland will then enjoy the consumer protection already afforded to hearing aid users in Great Britain.
Under the 1968 Act the council has drawn up a firm code of practice aimed at maintaining a high standard of service and practice to clients. Registration by the council is granted following a minimum of 12 months' training and success in the council's examination.
As was the case with the original Act for England and Wales, any Northern Ireland dispenser who has during the last two years acted as a dispenser for at least six months automatically qualifies for registration at the commencement of this Act.
The code and standards of practice are agreed in consultation with the Department of Prices and Consumer Protection. Unfortunately, Northern Ireland was omitted from the original Bill which was introduced as a Private Member's Bill by the Government Whip now on the Front Bench, my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, South (Mr. Pavitt), of whom we on this side are all very proud.
That seemed of little significance at the time because of the small number of dispensers in Northern Ireland. However, the 1968 Act gained wide significance following the Finance Act 1972 which introduced VAT. It was announced on 31st July last year that the consumer protection afforded to hearing aid purchasers in Great Britain would be extended to Northern Ireland. As I understand it, it would be possible to set up separate machinery by Order in Council, but it would be better to deal with it in this Bill.
I do not intend to get "booked" for dealing with the deficiencies of the 1968 Act but I wish to say that I support the extension of the Act to Northern Ireland despite its deficiencies. One of the deficiencies of the Act is that advertising has not been adequately dealt with. It is also clear that the problem of bankrupt firms has not been dealt with adequately in the existing legislation.

The Chairman: That may well be, but I hope the hon. Gentleman will relate what he is saying to why the Hearing Aid Council Act should apply to Northern Ireland.

Mr. Golding: I am very sad at having been "booked" for the first time, Mr. Thomas, having explained to you the way in which my mind is working—that is to say, that despite these deficiencies we are prepared to extend the legislation to Northern Ireland. I am always conscious, Mr. Thomas, when your ruff is up and the limit of your patience has been reached. For that reason, and also because of messages received from the Deputy Chief Whip, apparently from outside the Chamber, I conclude by saying that I recommend the acceptance of this clause.

Mr. Concannon: I should not like the wrong impression to get back to Northern Ireland. I was a little worried by the

intervention by the hon. Member for Flint, West (Sir M. Meyer). I believe that he has underestimated the importance of this clause to 1 million people in Northern Ireland who for the last seven years have lacked the cover and protection which the Bill provides. This Bill will give them that cover and protection, and that is the one feature of the Bill which should hit the headlines in Northern Ireland. I was therefore very sorry to hear the hon. Gentleman's intervention. If he had nothing better to say, it would have been better had he not spoken.
We have our problems in Northern Ireland, and the border is one of them. It is very difficult to deal with the border, and I regret that I am unable to give the assurances for which my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe (Mrs. Dunwoody) asked.

Mrs. Dunwoody: I quite understand that this raises a much more complex matter than merely the Hearing Aid Council. Could not my hon. Friend ask his colleagues in the Department of Industry to consider suggesting to the Hearing Aid Council that it should urgently consider dual involvement? This is a very dangerous situation, in which 15 dispensers in Northern Ireland are adhering to a very strict code of conduct and anybody could come in from the South with his little suitcase and do precisely the things which we are seeking to avoid by saying that they emanated from Eire.

Mr. Concannon: I imagine that the council is well aware that this debate is taking place today, and this is one of the matters which, no doubt, it will be considering. Obviously it will be to the council's advantage if there is a strict code of conduct in Northern Ireland, and it may well be that the council will want to see what can be done in Eire. All I am saying is that it is beyond my responsibility, though obviously it will be pointed out to the council.
What the hon. Member for Flint, West apparently does not appreciate is that this debate will receive publicity in Northern Ireland. There are other directions in which one would like to see the extension of this legislation to Northern Ireland, one being the automatic appointment of a Northern Ireland member to the council. However, there are obvious


difficulties. The members of the council are appointed by the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection, and in view of the number of dispensers—there are 750 in the rest of the United Kingdom and only 15 in Northern Ireland—one could hardly demand that there should be a member appointed from Northern Ireland. There has been a Welsh member on the council, but there has never been a Scottish member. We could possibly get one in Northern Ireland but his appointment would not be on the basis of his coming from Northern Ireland.
One of the weaknesses in the 1968 Act to which reference has been made is advertising. Unlike legislation in other paramedical sectors, such as the Opticians Act, the Hearing Aid Council Act does not empower the Hearing Aid Council to control advertising of hearing aids, and this is a weakness. At the time that the Act was going through Parliament, the Trade Descriptions Act 1968 was also in passage and it was thought, apparently wrongly, that the latter Act would deal with misleading advertisements generally. The council can now only rely on the requirement set out in paragraph 3 of the code of practice that dispensers shall maintain at all times a high standard of ethical conduct. There are certain rules laid down in the code of advertising practice, but these by no means amount to an effective form of control. This is a weakness, which got through accidentally, in the Hearing Aid Act. It was thought that it would be covered in the other Act, but unfortunately it is not covered and we are left with this inherent weakness.
The publication of the register throughout Northern Ireland will assist those who have not enjoyed the same protection there as we have had in this country. Knowing the Irish as I do. I think it is unfortunate that the one feature of this debate which will be lifted out of context is the remarks of the hon. Member for Flint, West, and I am afraid that they will go down very badly indeed. I should have thought that the fact that 1½ million of our people in Northern Ireland will now be able to enjoy the same standards as we in this country have enjoyed would have been welcomed by hon. Members. There is no reason why, when we are passing legislation for Northern Ireland, we should not make

it better than it is in Britain. Why should legislation in Northern Ireland always have to fall behind the standard of British legislation? Indeed, it would be nice if sometimes its legislation were to be ahead of ours.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Bill reported, without amendment.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

2.11 p.m.

Mrs. Dunwoody: I cannot allow the Third Reading to pass without putting on record one or two simple but heartfelt concerns. I have spent quite a lot of my adult life in work for the deaf, and I deeply deploy any suggestion that either the amendments put down in my name for consideration in Committee or the speeches made this morning were intended or used to keep the House from discussing other legislation. Lest anyone should have any doubt whatever in the matter, I shall personally undertake, given the leave of the House, to bring in the amendments to the 1968 Act which we have discussed today, because I believe that the hard of hearing and the deaf are still not well enough served by the 1968 Act.
I greatly deplore it when there are those who, because they seek to promote their own political ends, are prepared, out of arrogance, to assert that we have been seeking not to protect the deaf but to put back consideration of what can only be regarded as a very minor piece of legislation.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

2.13 p.m.

Sir Anthony Meyer: I beg to move, That the Bill be read a Second time.
I am grateful for this opportunity to introduce the Bill. There were moments when I was somewhat apprehensive about whether that opportunity would ever occur, but it has now come, and I find myself somewhat ill prepared.
The Bill which I have the honour to present to the House for Second Reading is closely similar, as observant hon. Members will have noticed, to the one which my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) introduced last year in a memorably witty speech. I hope that I shall be one of the last Members to have to introduce a Private Member's Bill to secure an extension of the franchise so as to provide truly universal suffrage. That is my hope, but I cannot flatter myself that I am likely to be the last. That being so, I did not think it right to impose any charge on public funds by requiring the drafting and printing of an altogether new Bill, and thus it comes about that this Bill bears a striking resemblance to the one which my hon. Friend the Member for Woking presented last year.
Hon. Members may feel that this subject has been well ventilated of late. It was well ventilated during the debates on the Referendum Bill in amendments put forward by various hon. Members—and none more ably than those tabled by the hon. Member for Belper (Mr. MacFarquhar). I understand also that next week my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury (Sir J. Langford-Holt) is to bring in a Bill to much the same effect.
As I say, I had hoped to be one of the last Members to brine in a Private Member's Bill on this subject. Pressure is mounting to make what we know as universal suffrage truly universal, and at the same time impatience is growing against the arguments of administrative difficulty which are the arguments usually advanced to resist any change.
What I put before the House today is a modest measure. Had I been starting from scratch, I might have gone much further and suggested really radical reform of the whole of our electoral system so as to produce radical changes in political structure in an effort to get away from what one might call ping-pong politics and move towards the kind of coalition politics which has enabled our continental neighbours to catch up with us in so many respects since the war.
However, that kind of radical reform—perhaps the most important and urgent task facing us today—is clearly not a subject for a Private Member's Bill, although I believe that it will come about only if private Members in all parts of the House combine to bring it about. I do not believe that it is any good leaving that subject to the party machines, because they have a vested interest in maintaining the present two-party system based on the present system of voting. But whatever system we have, whether the present adversary system of politics or coalition politics, it cannot be truly democratic unless everyone who is entitled to vote is readily able to do so. That is certainly not true today.
The Bill deals with three classes of would-be voters: those who are on holiday on polling day, Service Voters, and those who find themselves not on the register at the time when the election campaign begins. I propose to leave the question of holiday makers, dealt with in Clause 1, until last because it is the most controversial, and I am reasonably certain of carrying the House with me in what I have to say about Clauses 2 and 3.
Clause 2 deals with the Service vote. I am sure that I need make no great meal of this. The clause is designed to rectify what turned out to be the unfortunate consequences of the system introduced in 1969, with the best possible intentions, as a result of the recommendation of the Speaker's Conference for annual registration on Service voters. I was hoped that annual registration would increase the rather low proportion of Service men on the register at any given time, the hope being that the percentage would rise from just about 50 per cent., as it was then, to a substantially higher figure. In fact, as we now know, the result was the exact opposite. There was a drastic reduction in the number, and today the proportion is as low as 25 per cent. which, I am sure hon. Members will agree is shockingly low.
In 1973 the Speaker's Conference recommended return to the previous system of once-for-all registration, with the possibility each year of joining the register. Clause 1 is intended to give effect to that recommendation so that when a Service man joins up he is put on the


register and stays there until he leaves the Service. The reason why I am not making much of this obviously incontestable proposal is that the Government, in the form of the Minister of State for Defence, gave a firm pledge in the debate on the Referendum Bill
that the Government intend at an early opportunity to bring before the House of Commons appropriate legislation to give effect to this recommendation of the Speaker's Conference."—[Official Report, 22nd April 1975: Vol. 890, c. 1252.]
The right hon. Gentleman went on to accept an amendment moved by the hon. Member for Belper to give Servicemen and their families votes in the forthcoming referendum.
Clearly the Government regarded that as an exceptional case, but it was implicit in their acceptance of that amendment and in the Minister of State's statement that the Government intended to take early action on this matter. I have no doubt that the Under-Secretary of Slate for the Home Department will today repeat that assurance. She may even be able to give us an indication of exactly when "an early opportunity" will be. It is now two years since the recommendation was made, and we should be getting on with it.
Clause 3 deals with a problem which is all too common to hon. Members who campaign actively at grass roots level. It concerns people—very often this affects all the people who live in a small street, perhaps a cul-de-sac, or in a row of houses in a fairly remote area—who are left off the register. Very often this affects tenants in multi-occupation houses who are left off for other reasons. The classes I am most concerned with are those who find themselves left off the register as a result of an administrative mistake on the part of those who compile the register. I take this opportunity of paying tribute to the conscientious way in which those officials go about their job.
There will always be mistakes, and they produce an altogether disproportionate sense of grievance which is frequently magnified by reports in the local Press. It is because of this that the House carries a special obligation to do anything it can conveniently, or even inconveniently, do to set these matters right. When a clause identical to this was put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for

Woking last year, the Under-Secretary showed a great deal of sympathy and spoke about a working party which, she said, was looking at methods of enabling more continuous corrections to be made to the register to ensure that it was kept reasonably up to date.
I confess that my researches, which necessarily have not been as thorough as I should have liked, have failed to unearth very much information about the progress of the working party. I shall be deeply grateful to the Under-Secretary if she will tell us something about how it is getting along. Certainly the Library, which very seldom misses a trick, was unable to provide me with information about it.
I hate to criticise the Under-Secretary, but on re-reading the reports of the previous debates I thought she was a little complacent in implying that people had only themselves to blame if they were left off the register, or that at least they had a remedy in their own hands. Obviously, it is up to every elector to make sure that he is on the register. In spite of all experience to the contrary, however, people continue to believe that, by and large, officials will do their job and that it is not up to the individual citizen at every turn to ensure that they have done so. Quite apart from that, the question of voting in a General Election is not in the forefront of the minds of ordinary self-respecting citizens 365 days a year for every year of their lives. People have other things to think about, and it is only human nature that not until a General Election is in the air do most people think to make sure that they are on the register, by which time it is too late.
Therefore, I make no apology for trying to enable people to take action to get themselves on the register even after the date of a General Election has been announced. The Bill would provide that for two or three days after such an announcement there would be an opportunity for people to be put on the register if they were left off by accident.

Mr. George Cunningham: Is the hon. Member assuming that there is no means of doing that at the moment?

Sir A. Meyer: There is the complicated procedure of mandamus, but that


is beyond the resources or understanding of the average elector. I admit that there is a legal procedure to enable this to be done, but it is not unrealistic to say that for practical purposes the difficulties, if not insuperable, are very daunting for the average citizen.
I am therefore content to put forward a proposal which will enable people, for quite a considerable time, after the possibility of a General Election becomes a reality, to get themselves put on the register without the necessity of cumbrous legal proceedings. After all, not many General Elections are sprung on us at 17 days' notice. They are usually in the air for some time. The clause would help people whose interest in politics was suddenly re-aroused by the calling of the election and who could go round to the post office to inspect the register.
I have left until last my comments on Clause 1 concerning votes for holiday makers. I suppose that this is a controversial matter, although I am not sure why it should be. The idea has taken root that a Labour Government will oppose the extension of votes for people who are away from home on holiday because more Tory than Labour voters would be likely to lose their votes through being away from home. In a moment or two I shall suggest that that is not true, but it would be particularly important for a Labour Government to scotch the myth. Since the conduct of the then Home Secretary in 1969 in refusing to implement the recommendations of the Boundary Commission, Labour has been shown to be vulnerable to the charge of monkeying around with the franchise for purposes of party advantage.
For that reason, if for no other, the Labour Government should show rather more concern for holiday makers being able to vote than my party has shown. I fully concede that Conservative Governments have shown remarkably little keenness to do anything about the problem, but they were not quite so vulnerable. If a Labour Government cannot be shamed into remedying this injustice, perhaps they can be lured into it by the prospects of improving their electoral chances thereby. It is now clear that those who can afford to go away from home on holiday, thereby risking losing

their votes, are likely to be drawn increasingly from the ranks of Labour voters and less from the ranks of the Conservatives.
During the past few years, and especially last year, there has been a truly massive shift in purchasing power and spendable resources not from the rich to the poor but from the unorganised to the organised, especially to those workers whose industrial strength has enabled them to exploit the social contract to their advantage. It is evident from the statistics of the travel agents that the people who are cancelling their holidays for this summer are overwhelmingly those who traditionally voted Tory; namely, small shopkeepers, the professional people in a small way, the retired people living on their savings, and even middle management people. Those people will not be able to afford to go on holiday because they are squeezed between static or shrinking incomes and the ever-increasing cost of living, the burden of rates, the water rate, the telephone rental and other inescapable fixed charges which leave no room at all for making economies.
The people who have managed to improve their real income during the past year are overwhelmingly members of powerful unions who are the hard core of the Labour Party's electoral support. If too many of these people are away on world cruises or Caribbean holidays at the time of the next General Election the prospects of the Labour Party will be seriously impaired.
I suggest that the Labour Party will rue its inability to shed its old prejudices once they have ceased to pay dividends. I have read and listened carefully to the reasons given by Ministers for objecting to votes for holiday makers. There has been much talk of administrative difficulties, but I do not believe in these insuperable administrative difficulties. We were told at one stage that it would be administratively impossible to switch the counting of the referendum vote from Earls Court to the counties, but the House voted for this to happen and it will happen. The administrative difficulties in that respect have melted away.
Ministers talk of 30 per cent. or more of voters applying for postal or proxy votes if it is made too easy for them to do so. I believe that it should be made easy


for them to do so, but I do not believe the 30 per cent. figure. Most people will continue to vote in person even if they can vote by post or by proxy, because they find it easy and convenient to do so, and, moreover, they enjoy doing so. I find totally unrealistic the talk about the danger of corrupt practices arising from the admitted fact that a postal vote is a witnessable vote. If we are talking about individual voters, who on earth will feel it worth his while to run the risk of bribing a single voter among the 60,000 or so in each constituency? I am speaking as someone who has won his seat by 11 votes, but I could not possibly have known in advance that there was any possibility of there being so narrow a margin and I do not believe that anybody could have done so, with the possible exception of my recent colleague, Sir Harmar Nicholls, who has now gone to another place, who, of course, made it a regular practice to win by single-figure majorities. I do not believe that it would ever be worth while bribing a single elector.
If we are talking about the possibility of bribing large groups of electors we are entering into the realm of conspiracy and I should have thought that the law dealt satisfactorily with that.
I believe that it is no longer defensible to deprive a person of his vote because he is absent from home on holiday. What might be called the puritan arguments have been totally and convincingly demolished. It is no longer tenable that there is something faintly irresponsible about going away on holiday. I believe that a Labour Government will discover that they will not lose by extending the franchise to cover holiday makers and that it will give them an opportunity to efface any lingering impression that they have an interest in continuing to restrict the franchise.

2.35 p.m.

Mr. John Cartwright: I rise to oppose the Bill. In view of what the hon. Member for Flint, West (Sir A. Meyer) said about party machines, I should reveal that I am a product of the party machine. Indeed, for many years I was part of a party machine. About 20 years ago I first became a full-time political organiser, an election agent. In the course of 20 years as a

professional agent I ran a great many election campaigns ranging from parish council elections to parliamentary elections. I acted as agent for hundreds of candidates, and some of them even got themselves elected, or at least I helped them to get themselves elected. I recall, in particular, two of those candidates who became Members of Parliament: first, my predecessor, Christopher Mayhew, and, secondly, my late colleague, Bill Hamling, for both of whom I acted as agent in two General Elections.
I claim some knowledge of electoral organisations and the working of electoral law. I oppose strongly the proposition in Clause 1 of the Bill about the extension of both postal and proxy voting to cover the needs of holiday makers. As the hon. Member for Flint, West indicated, this is very much a hardy annual. A case can be made in principle that the denial of absent voting to holiday makers is an apparent denial of justice. Such a case was made well by the hon. Member. I do not oppose the Bill because, as the hon. Member was suggesting, I have made any examination of the relative political merits or the relative benefits to individual parties of an extension of absent voting in this sphere, although I am bound to say, with reference to his remarks about the powerful organised trade unions and the holiday habits of their members, that when I look at the active Labour supporters in my constituency I cannot recall many who go regularly on world cruises or have it as part of their normal holiday pattern to go to the Caribbean.
My objections to the impact of this proposition are not on political grounds. They are basically on the grounds of practicability. Clause 1 suggests that holiday makers seeking to take advantage of the widening of the absent voting provision would have to satisfy the electoral registration officer that they had made arrangements to be absent on holiday on the date of polling before publication of the notice of the election. I wonder how they are going to do that, how they will make that fact known to the electoral registration officer and how they will satisfy him beyond doubt that that is the situation. Will they be required to produce hotel bookings to prove that they had arranged a holiday? Will they have to produce invoices from tour operators or other proof?
If they had made that sort of holiday arrangement I suppose that sort of proof might be available, but what happens to the family that decide to have a holiday with Grandad in Pembroke, Grandma in Bootle, or Aunty Doris in Battersea, and have no proof that that is their holiday arrangement? They will clearly be absent on holiday in that sort of situation. What about people who undertake a touring holiday and simply have no formal arrangement for proving that holiday? What about the people who had not decided to be away on holiday but suddenly decided that polling day was the day to take a trip in a coach?
All this indicates that to define "a holiday" is extremely difficult. I should have thought that the average electoral registration officer would be placed in an extremely difficult position in requiring proof that an individual voter would be on holiday at the time of an election. The sort of certification required for absent voting in the case of infirmity would be impossible of extension to holidaymakers. Even where absent voting is allowed to people whose jobs, service or occupation may prevent them from voting in person, an element of proof is always available or can be made available. However, if the extension to holiday makers were allowed, no form of certification of that type would be possible for production to the electoral registration officer.
One therefore must come to the conclusion that the holidaymaker would have to appear in person before the electoral registration officer in order to satisfy him about his holiday bona fides. There would be no possibility of doing that in the time scale which would have to be met for the registration of absent voters.
If one says that all that is too elaborate and that no element of proof of that sort is required, that is an even more dangerous approach. Some of us have been concerned in recent general and local elections about the relaxation of certificates for absent voters on grounds of infirmity or illness. At one time electoral registration officers were extremely strict about requiring applications to be supported by a doctor's certificate. That has gradually lapsed and now in

many areas the application can be signed by another elector or a political agent. Some of us feel that that relaxation is a matter of concern.
We should consider the possible results of widening the absent voting regulations to cover holiday makers. The electoral registration officers take the view that any such widening could double, or almost double, the number of people on the absent voters lists and that the impact on the administration of an increase of that sort would be considerable. Drawing on experience of recent General Elections, I know that agents and others involved have been concerned about delays in obtaining the absent voters lists from the electoral registration officers who have been under extreme pressure because of the extra demand for postal votes and the need to get the list out in time for the political parties to use it.
It is a democratic entitlement of any candidate and his agent to have the absent voters list in good time to ensure that all electors on it can be circulated with the candidate's material so that the electors are aware of his case before casting their votes. Any extension which made the list much longer would make the delays in practical campaigning intolerable.
There is, however, an even more severe objection concerning the question of time. The electoral registration officers have taken the view that if there were a substantial extension of absent voting they would need a great deal more time to register the applications, produce the absent voters lists, prepare the ballot papers for distribution and other administrative tasks. They have said that it would take about 10 days in addition to the time currently available to them.
Since under the present arrangements applications must be received 12 days, excluding Sunday, before polling day—that is the final time for the receipt of applications to vote by post or proxy—any extension beyond that would cause substantial problems. If one added 10 extra days to the existing 12, adding on Sundays, we should have a closing date over three weeks before polling day.
Since in the last two General Elections we have moved towards a situation in which the election campaign is substantially shortened, electors would possibly


have one day or at most two days in which to submit applications to vote by post before the list had to be closed. In a parliamentary by-election in a borough constituency, the closing date for the receipt of postal vote applications would be the day before the writ was issued and, therefore, the day before anybody knew that there was to be a by-election.
The other important factor about extending the closing date for the receipt of postal vote applications is that it may effectively disfranchise people who fall sick, perhaps in the final period of an election campaign. Under the present arrangements such a person can claim a postal vote. If the closing date were brought forward, he might be prevented from so claiming and might, as a result, be effectively disfranchised.
The hon. Member for Flint, West referred to the fear which some people have expressed that a substantial widening of postal voting or absent voting would present problems of security and secrecy. Because of the difficulty of proving that anybody would be on holiday on any set date, if we were to accept that sort of approach we should virtually be saying that any elector who wished to do so could claim a postal or proxy vote. The hon. Gentleman played down the risks involved in any substantial increase in the number of postal voters on the register. There is the problem of the secrecy of the ballot and the fact that ballot papers are available, under the postal voting arrangements, for about a week before polling day.
Those of us who have been involved in political campaigning know the temptations in respect of postal votes. For example, it is a temptation to go out and seek to organise the postal voters and to assist them in completing their declarations of identity. It has been known for political organisations to collect the postal votes to ensure that they reach their destination. Leaving aside the question of corruption, there is a grave risk in widening the system and the opportunities for political organisations to take part in influencing voting in that way. There have been one or two cases in the courts in recent years on the question of postal voting. In other cases there have been suspicions about the way in which the postal vote was conducted.
I should like to say a few words about Clause 3. In my experience as an agent I have, like the hon. Member for Flint, West, expressed the view that there should be machinery by which we could simply correct mistakes made in the compilation of the register. I do not know whether the way in which the Bill is drafted would meet that problem. I accept that if an obvious mistake were made by an electoral registration officer—perhaps omitting from the register a complete street or an entire block of flats—the sort of procedure proposed might meet the need. But the requirement that the fault should be admitted by the registration officer might result in complications in other directions.
Over the years I have had a number of complaints from electors claiming that they have been missed off the register due to the fault of the electoral registration officer. On investigation I have often discovered that the electoral registration officer claims that a registration form was delivered at a certain address but the elector claims that he never received it. In such a situation it would be difficult to decide whether the fault lay with the registration officer.
There have been cases in which electoral registration officers have claimed that landlords of multi-occupied houses have had forms delivered to them or have been canvassed by the canvassers employed by the electoral registration officer but the landlords, possibly for good reasons of their own, claim that they did not receive the call or the documentation and for that reason did not include their tenants on the electoral register. Although I applaud the intentions of Clause 3, I have doubts about its practical application to elections.
The main aim of the Bill, as the hon. Member for Flint, West indicated, is to extend postal voting to holiday makers. As the hon. Gentleman rightly and fairly admitted, such an extension has been rejected by Parliament on several occasions. It has been rejected by Ministers of both parties on several occasions. It has been considered in some detail by the Home Office Electoral Advisory Committee, which has determined that it is impracticable.
This horse has been running for a long time. It has been running for so long


that it is now getting extremely knock-kneed. It clearly is not a winner, and we should put it out of its misery by rejecting its Second Reading.

2.51 p.m.

Mr. Anthony Fell: I am most grateful to have been called after the hon. Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Cartwright). I hope the hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I do not take up his remarks in detail. Unlike me, I understand that he was an agent. He will, therefore, consider this whole matter from a different angle. Curiously enough, my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, West (Sir A. Meyer) has the distinction of having had a father who came after my grandfather as the Member of Parliament for Yarmouth. I believe that that was in 1922 or thereabouts.

Sir A. Meyer: It was 1924.

Mr. Fell: Therefore, it is with much felicity towards him that I have a word or two to say about the Bill.
I am not frightfully impressed by the view that because this or that is difficult it cannot be done. Of course, I realise that since computers came in it has been far more difficult to deal with one's bank than it ever was before. I realise that everything has become slower since we are supposed to have been speeded up. The fact is that we have become slower and less effective than we ever were before the introduction of computers.
I will not take the answer that it is not possible for people who are on holiday to have a vote. I realise that there are enormous implications. We are talking about not only people who are on holiday in Hong Kong or even in Europe but those who are on holiday, bless their hearts, in Yarmouth, or in that lesser seaside town—

Mr. Ian Gow: Eastbourne is not a lesser seaside town.

Mr. Fell: With respect, I was not going to call Eastbourne a lesser seaside town. I was going to refer to Blackpool in those terms. However, I will include Eastbourne for good measure. Comparatively speaking, it is an unknown seaside town although it is a beautiful town with a very nice antique shop. I do not include Eastbourne in the holusbolus of the enormous holiday trade

that goes on in this country, of which Great Yarmouth is a case in point.

Sir A. Meyer: What about Rhyll?

Mr. Fell: At some stage I believe I heard of Rhyll. The point I am making is that Yarmouth has hundreds of thousands of holiday makers during the holiday season. Of course, some extraordinary affair is to take place on some date during next month. I believe that it will take place on 5th June. It is a matter of interest to the people of the nation but it is taking place at a time when many people will be on holiday. It will be difficult for those people to get a vote unless they are able to return home to cast their vote in their own locality.
With my whole heart and common sense—I am prepared to admit that I may have little common sense but I assume I have some—I am in favour of what my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, West is trying to do. Surely in this modern age there must be a way of finding a method, despite what the hon. Member for Woolwich, East has said about the difficulties, of allowing people a vote who are not at their homes on a particular day. If there is not, we have all failed and our endeavours have been absolute nonsense from beginning to end. At least people could be given a few days' notice so that their votes could be accepted in an election.
I know that anyone in the House who has had some experience of the difficulties of democracy will be able to say how impossible it is to devise such a method. I know that the Minister—bless her heart, I have the greatest affection for her—will not be able to say without a blush that nothing can be done.

Mr. Donald Stewart: That is what the hon. Lady is here for.

Mr. Fell: The hon. Member for the Western Isles (Mr. Stewart), a Scottish Member of the greatest calibre, says "That is what she is here for". The hon. Gentleman can have no faith in democracy if he believes that the Labour Party, of all parties, is not anxious to defend democracy. If we read the speeches of Labour Party spokesmen over the past three or four years—perhaps they have been slightly exaggerated during that time owing to their euphoria—or over the


past 25 years, we will find that no party in the House has such a love of democracy as the Labour Party. Realising that Labour Members are the lovers of democracy, it is hardly possible to believe that the sort of thing that happened the night before last as regards Scotland could have ever happened within the Labour Party. It seems that it is the party beyond all others that believes that the only possibility for the future of the British nation is in democracy. It is not possible to believe that the Minister could say anything contrary to the intentions of the Bill.
However, I sense—I hope and pray that I sense wrongly, for, as I have said, I am an admirer of the hon. Lady—that the Minister will act to the contrary. It is difficult to believe that she can do otherwise than accept this small, humble but vitally important Bill. What will she do? Why are we here in the House of Commons?

Mr. Cartwright: I often wonder.

Mr. George Cunningham: Hear, hear.

Mr. Fell: The hon. Member for Woolwich, East, himself a former agent, wonders why we are here. He may well wonder why, because he is a former agent of a party which has done its best to destroy our democracy.

Mr. Cartwright: I meant that I often wonder why we are here when we have to listen to speeches like that of the hon. Member for Yarmouth (Mr. Fell).

Mr. Fell: I am happy to be abused by the hon. Gentleman. He has been a Member of this House for many years, whereas I have been here only since 1951. He knows perfectly well that since his party took a basic hand in running the country and came to power for the third or perhaps the fourth time in October last year—and the more dreadful the disaster for the country if it was the fourth time—democracy has not exactly improved its image or become more loved by the British people.
I ask the House to consider what happened last night. I am not so stupid as to suggest that the results of the voting last night in the Black Country and the surrounding areas show that the British people have had enough of the Labour Party. I believe that it is true to say

that even your Bill is subject to difficulty—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mr. Fell: Not your Bill, Sir. I apologise sincerely for having transgressed the rules of order.
Even my hon. Friend's Bill will not dampen or surpass last night's news that the Tory Party won a few seats. Of course, it is true that under my right hon. Friend the Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) the Tory Party is doing better than it was.

Mr. Laurie Pavitt: It could not do worse.

Mr. Fell: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will get to his feet and repeat that. I apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for having attempted to give way to a most important and senior Minister in Her Majesty's Government only to discover that his throat is out of order. I ought to have been able to guess that it would not have been in order had there been any possibility of his trying to contradict me. The hon. Member for Brent, South (Mr. Pavitt) is a man of great percipience. He has backed the Labour Party for a long period—I was about to say "for generations", but that would be unkind. I wonder where he stands now. How does he think that the British people would vote today about any matter?
I am sure that no one in the serried ranks of Her Majesty's Opposition will suggest that a General Election is an unimportant matter for the British people. Who cares about referenda? There is no importance in referenda. My hon. Friend the Member for Flint, West was too percipient and wise to include referenda in his Bill. He introduced his Bill long before the question of the forthcoming referendum cropped up—

Sir A. Meyer: Do not talk it out.

Mr. Fell: My hon. Friend has just asked me not to talk out his Bill. However, in the new language of Parliament, I make the time to be only 15·4—

Mr. Donald Stewart: No. It is 15·04.

Mr. Fell: I accept the correction from the Leader of the Scottish National Party, for whom I have the greatest respect and affection. It is 15·04—

Mr. Cartwright: It is 15·05 now.

Mr. Fell: The hon. Gentleman is quick to correct. I will be kind and give him this point. He was correct. Well done. The only correct thing that he said in the House of Commons this afternoon was that—half a minute ago—it was 15·05. I consider that to be a great correctness for an ex-agent of the Labour Party, now a Member of Parliament for a most distinguished area of London.
I shall not continue for much longer. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow) wishes to speak on this matter because he has quickly become seized, as I have, of the importance of what is going on in the House at this late stage.
My hon. Friend the Member for Flint, West was somewhat surprised that his Bill should have got as far as having a Second Reading.
I have the greatest admiration and affection for my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne. It will be in my style anyway, as my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) will know, to be particularly kind to all my hon. Friends. Therefore, at the first moment that my gushing arrests itself, I shall sit down and give him an opportunity to speak if there be no one on the Government side who wishes to speak. One notices that there is no enormous succession of hon. Members trooping into the House to uphold the feelings of the vast majority of the British people that they should have a vote when there is either a General Election or a referendum, whether they be on holiday, or business, or whatever else takes them away from their homes.
The Labour Party is supposed to be the past master in democracy. Hon. Members opposite believe that "democracy" should come in every other word in their speeches. They regard it as some magical term. I admit straight away that few members of the Labour Party who in these dreadful months have supported the Communist onslaught in Vietnam believe in democracy so strongly that at the same time they believe in Communism.
I promise you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I have no intention of bringing this matter into the subject covered by the Bill except where it is relevant. But it is surely relevant, in a Bill which tries to

bring greater democracy to the people of Britain, to know that those who shout democracy from the house tops the loudest are those who believe least in the things that they shout about. It is a very sad thing, being a Member of Parliament in this honourable and great House for this honourable and great country, to see the people who have shouted the loudest about democracy being the thing about which they most cared showing in their actions that they care least of all for the future of democracy in Britain.

Mr. George Cunningham: Do not shout so loudly.

Mr. Fell: The hon. Gentleman, who has a voice like a sparrow, dare not even stand on his pins to say so. With respect, even if I shouted quietly he would not understand. He is telling me not to shout so loudly. Why? Because he is accustomed to the cooing of doves which coo for peace but mean war, because he is one of the Labour Members in this House who talk of democracy and mean war.

Mr. George Cunningham: Mean what?

Mr. Fell: War. The hon. Member believes not in democracy but in anarchy. That is the disease of which the British people must beware.

3.11 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Dr. Shirley Summerskill): rose—

Mr. Gow: rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton): Mr. Gow.

Mr. Gow: I rise to support the Bill.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I apologise to the hon. Member, but I should have called the Minister to speak because she rose first.

Dr. Summerskill: I should like to congratulate the hon. Member for Flint, West (Sir A. Meyer) on the skill he has shown in commending the Bill to the House. I recognise that the proposals contained in the Bill have considerable support in some parts of the House and from many people outside. All hon. Members have personal experience of the problems which the hon. Gentleman has


outlined, as we have heard during this and other debates in the House.
It was in May last year that a similar Bill, presented by the hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow), was debated in this House. Since that time we have had a further General Election, and we are now about to hold a referendum on our continued membership of the European Economic Community. The close sequence of General Election and referendum has inevitably concentrated attention on various aspects of our electoral system. In the debates on the Referendum Bill in particular we discussed a number of topics that are being debated here today. This applies especially to the question of postal votes for holiday makers and to the special arrangements that are appropriate for Service men. As far as the present Bill is concerned, I think it may be for the convenience of the House if I first say something about Service men's registration, which is the subject of Clause 2, and then speak about the subjects referred to in Clauses 1 and 3.
As the House will know, the substance of Clause 2 to return to the once-for-all system of Service men's registration is in accordance with a recommendation of the Speaker's Conference in 1973. The Government are in sympathy with this recommendation but consider it more appropriate that such a matter should be dealt with in Government legislation. As the House will also know, my hon. Friend the Minister of State for Defence announced on 22nd April that the Government hope to introduce legislation at an early opportunity for a return to the earlier system of once-for-all registration. That legislation could also make appropriate provision for Service men's wives and for other people in the category of Service voters, such as Crown servants and the staff of the British Council. The Bill that we are considering today has implications for these categories of voters, but it is not clear whether the Bill's intention is that they should be covered by the proposals.

Sir A. Meyer: The hon. Lady referred to once-for-all registration. May I assume that there will be provision for annual additions to the register?

Dr. Summerskill: Yes. I shall be coming to that.
The current level of registration for Service men is about 25 per cent., which everyone will agree is far too low. This compares with a figure of about 60 per cent., when the once-for-all registration system was in operation before 1969. At that time the figure was thought to be a low one and it was hoped that a change in the system of registration to an annual one would result in an improvement. In fact the reverse was the case, though there are various explanations for this. I think we must accept as a fact of life that the level of registration for Service men is unlikely under the present system to reach the high levels achieved for the civilian population. The mobility and stress of Service life are bound to have some effect.
For that reason the Speaker's Conference recommendation in 1973 contained some additional proposals to support the once-for-all registration. One of the most important of these was that, after initial registration, each Service man should have an opportunity annually to change any particulars of his registration and, in addition, that an obligation should be placed on commanding officers to distribute forms individually to each Service man, to provide assistance as required in completing the forms and to collect and dispatch the completed forms.
It should be the duty of the Service authorities to give greater publicity and encouragement to Service men to notify when necessary any changes in the details of their registration or to appoint proxies when posted overseas. At the same time it was proposed that these requirements should not involve the creation of a new military offence. All these points will be taken into account when the Government are drafting their legislation on this matter. We shall also take note of the valuable points that are being made by speakers in the debate today.

Mr. Gow: The hon. Lady will know that there was an Adjournment debate on this point a week ago. Are the Government proposing to introduce the legislation to which her hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Royal Air Force referred and to which she herself has referred today? Will it be mentioned in the Gracious Speech in October?

Dr. Summerskill: I cannot give a positive undertaking as to exactly when this


will be introduced, but I can say that it will be "at an early opportunity"—which to me is quite a promising phrase. I can think of less promising phrases in the introduction of legislation.
I turn now to Clause 1 of the Bill. This would provide absent voting facilities for people who were away on holiday on the day of an election. One sympathises with people who are going away on holiday and who find that they cannot exercise their right to vote without returning home on polling day. But there are very sever problems both in principle and in practice in the extension of absent voting facilities to a large number of the electorate—a number which we are told is increasing as more people go away on holiday—for a particular election only.

Mr. Donald Stewart: I apologise for missing the opening speeches in this debate. On practical grounds, since the mechanics for postal voting already exist, it seems to many of us that there would be no great difficulty in extending them. Second, I am told that anyone who simply declares that he is away on business gets a postal vote as of right.

Dr. Summerskill: I agree that postal voting exists, but if the hon. Gentleman will bear with me, I shall try to show how it does not follow, just for that reason, that one should extend the facility to people away on holiday.
At the General Election in October 1974, about 1 million electors voted by post. It has been suggested that at some periods up to 4 million people may be away on holiday and that one-third of them may be abroad. I shall not follow the hon. Member for Flint, West in an analysis of the conclusions about the possible political views of people who go away on holiday. This is not only practically impossible to do but should be irrelevant to what we are discussing.
The House will recognise, I am sure, that to preserve the secrecy of the ballot in postal voting it is necessary to incorporate a number of safeguards. This makes it a complicated process involving three envelopes, a declaration of identity, a. ballot paper and a special procedure to ensure secrecy on receipt of the marked ballot paper and declaration.
As I mentioned in the debate on the Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Woking on 10th May 1974, the Electoral Advisory Conference in 1971 considered the practical implications of postal votes for people on holiday. For those who are not aware of it, that conference consists of returning officers, registration officers and agents of political parties. They came to the conclusion that the election timetable would have to be extended by 12 days, which would mean that the statutory period between Dissolution and polling day would have to be 29 working days instead of the present 17. The use of computers and other technological aids—the hon. Member for Yarmouth (Mr. Fell), who has left the Chamber, would be interested to know this—would be unlikely to accelerate this process, particularly if it were necessary to examine documents of various shapes and sizes that had been produced to prove that applicants would be away on holiday at the relevant time.
The Electoral Advisory Conference also drew attention to the increased risks of abuse from postal voting. This is really the most serious objection—at any rate, the objection about which people feel most strongly when we discuss this subject.

Mr. Cranley Onslow: Does not the hon. Lady agree, however, that the people who are best placed to judge whether they want to vote are not Electoral Advisory Conference, party agents or whatever may be our equivalent of Tammany Hall, but the actual electors whose right it is? If the hon. Lady relies on the argument that it is difficult for the bureaucrats or the argument that if 4 million people are away that makes it difficult, the first carries no weight and the second we are here to overcome. The bureaucrats work for us, and not the other way around.

Dr. Summerskill: Yes, but on the other hand, if we are advised of difficulties by those who have to work the system, it is only right that we should take those into consideration when discussing it. I am simply informing the House of the difficulties that we have been advised would occur.
In connection with abuse, I remind the House of recent newspaper reports alleging abuses in connection with the Convention elections held yesterday in Northern Ireland. These indicate some


of the abuses which could arise, even if, as we all sincerely hope, they prove to be unfounded in the cases mentioned.

Mr. Onslow: Previous experience in Northern Ireland since postal voting was instituted widely there was that it minimised intimidation and so on. The reports which I have seen, and which I, like the hon. Lady, applaud, do not give any indication that intimidation or abuse extended to those who exercise the franchise by post, as they now may.

Dr. Summerskill: I have seen some reports of possible postal vote abuses, which I hope will be proved not to have occurred.
The scope for abuse or even corruption would certainly exist at a General Election with 4 million sets of postal voting papers sent to various addresses, including hotels, boarding houses and camping sites, and abroad. There would be considerable problems, even assuming that every application was genuine. As the Electoral Advisory Conference pointed out, however, in practice it would not be possible to check effectively the applications of people who said that they would be on holiday.

Sir A. Meyer: It is expressly provided in the Bill that these postal votes will not be sent from abroad. For those going abroad it will be a question of proxy voting.

Dr. Summerskill: Yes, I appreciate that this does not include voting from abroad.
A postal vote would in practice have to be allowed to almost anyone who said that he would be away on holiday. This would mean that voting by post would become, as some hon. Members have suggested, an alternative to voting in person. Obviously some people would continue to vote in person, but even so the postal vote might rise from the present 2 per cent. or 3 per cent. to 30 per cent. Some hon. Members would perhaps consider that anyone should have a postal vote and not merely those specified in the Bill. Even the Bill has certain restrictions on who should have a postal vote. I suppose that the next stage could be that one took one's choice of either going to the ballot box or voting by post.
My hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Cartwright) made some

important points in a most effective speech. I do not think that we should seek to minimise, as the hon. Member for Yarmouth minimised, the fact that my hon. Friend was an election agent. We are very fortunate to have the benefit of his practical experience. He gave examples of the dangers, problems and difficulties which would be involved in any extension of the postal vote. They are matters on which I do not think that the hon. Member who introduced the Bill laid sufficient stress.
Clause 1 also proposes that people on holiday overseas should be able to vote by proxy. This is, however, open to the general objection to proxy voting that it infringes the secrecy of the ballot and is open to abuse. In addition there is the necessity to find a suitable person who is able and willing to vote on one's behalf. This might be particularly difficult in those towns which have a common holiday period in the North—the Wakes weeks and so on—where everybody goes on holiday at exactly the same time.
I have attempted to explain these problems in some detail because the Government consider that they are substantial. In our view, the proper form for consideration of the issues involved is Mr. Speaker's Conference on Electoral Law. The question of absent voting was one of the important matters that the Speaker's Conference of 1973–74 was unable to consider. Its study will no doubt be taken up by a reconvened conference. As the House knows, the convening of a Speaker's Conference is a matter for the leaders of the main parties in consultation with Mr. Speaker. I cannot forecast the outcome of those consultations, but I would think it probable that there would be general support for reconvening the conference as soon as this can conveniently be arranged when the referendum on our membership of the EEC is over.
I turn to Clause 3. My hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, East, drawing on his practical experience, listed the problems of drawing up an accurate register. Sometimes the voter claims that there was no form to fill in, yet on the other hand the registration officer claims that the voter had a form to fill in. Hon. Members with constituents whose names have been left off the electoral register


will sympathise with the clause. We have all had such cases in our constituencies. We know that the only recourse at present is by means of an action for mandamus in the divisional court. I agree that on the whole people would be deterred from taking legal proceedings.
I think we would wish to acknowledge the difficult task that electoral registration officers have and the efficiency with which they perform this task. Of course, this would be easier and the register even more accurate at its publication each February if householders could be persuaded to return the completed canvass forms promptly and to check the electors list. Some £18,000 is spent annually on national publicity. This includes the use of newspapers in the Welsh and other languages, quite apart from the local publicity arranged by registration officers. In spite of this, relatively few of the electorate take any action until they find they are refused a vote at an election itself.
To the extent that an error by the registration officer or his staff should not exclude an elector, there must be agreement with the principle behind Clause 3. But we must consider how one is to satisfy the registration officer that the fault was his or that of his agents. What sort of evidence should the registration officer expect of earlier or past residence at an address on the qualifying date in question? Should late-corners to the register be exempt from the public right of scrutiny and challenge that the electors lists provide for those citizens whose names have been included in the normal way?
It may be said that these are points of drafting which could be put right in Committee. But the real problem is one that goes far deeper than the situation envisaged by the present Bill. It was to examine this question that a working party was set up on the recommendation of the Speaker's Conference in October 1973. This working party consists of electoral registration officers from all over the country, the three main parties at national agent level, the Local Authority Management Services and Computer Committee, officials and statisticians of the Home Office and other Departments, and various other bodies.
The remit of the working party was to study the means of keeping the register more up to date, including the likely results of the more general use of computers. In passing, I understand that the working party has examined various technological aids with a view to seeing what applications they might have either in the short-term or in the long-term. It seems that the use of the computer to produce the 100 or so copies of a register needed for electoral purposes is not an economically viable proposition, even though in England and Wales about one third of districts produce their master registers with the aid of computers. The working party has the benefit of advice from representatives of the political parties and is considering the various practical and constitutional constraints imposed on electoral registration procedures.

Mr. Onslow: I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way again. The body which she is describing is not what one would call a consumer-oriented body from the electoral point of view. Would she consider that the real question is on what basis a man should be able to establish his right to a vote, and that if he takes the responsibility of stating on oath that he is qualified and that the conditions are as he has stated them, that is a much more democratic process than the heavy-weather-making process that she is describing?

Sir A. Meyer: Before the hon. Lady replies to that intervention, will she say when the working party last met and when it is due to meet next? There does not seem to be much information about it.

Dr. Summerskill: In reply to the first point about consumer orientation, the working party was set up on the recommendation of the Speaker's Conference. It was the Speaker's Conference which recommended on 25th October 1973 that the Home Office should arrange for this working party to be set up with the remit to which I have referred.
On the question about the meetings, it last met on 28th April this year, which is not very long ago.
I understand that the present requirement of a qualifying date for residence, the claims and objections procedure, the


supply of copies to right hon. and hon. Members, candidates at elections and to polling stations, and the public availability of the register have been or are being examined. In addition, various means by which the register can be updated so that the maximum number of electors can vote for candidates standing for election in the area in which they currently reside are being considered, taking account also of the need to ensure that such people cannot vote in their former area of residence. It may be of interest to note that in a district with 350,000 electors there can be 110,000 changes in the register in one year. This works out at about 500 each working day.
I recognise that it can be argued that when defects appear in our electoral law the law should be amended straight away. It is, however, essential that these amendments should not introduce more complications or more anomalies than the existing law already contains, and that the rights of public scrutiny are maintained. I very much hope that the working party's report, which is expected later this year, will suggest ways of improving the accuracy of the register without bringing unwanted side effects in its train. At the same time, I urge people to check the register. Many do not know that they can, or, if they do know, they do not bother to do so.
I am sure that the House will appreciate the importance of proceeding carefully in electoral matters, since the electoral law is obviously a vital part of our framework of democracy. It is essential, moreover, that any new legislation on this important subject should be preceded by the customary process of consultation. We have one of the best electoral systems in the world. Change in it may be slow, but I am sure that this is preferable to change being too fast.
As I said earlier, the Government propose to bring forward as soon as practicable their own legislation to improve the arrangements for Service men's registration. As regards absent voting facilities for holiday makers, in our view, as I have explained, it would be appropriate for the matter to be considered by a reconvened Speaker's Conference as part of a wider examination of absent voting generally. The

question of supplementary registers, I strongly suggest, should be considered again in the light of the recommendations of the working party on the electoral register to which I have referred.
For these reasons, the Government are not able to support the Bill today.

3.35 p.m.

Mr. Ian Gow: I support the Bill, so ably introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, West (Sir A. Meyer). I shall deal with it in the order adopted by the hon. Lady the Under-Secretary of State, taking Clause 2 first and then Clauses 1 and 3.
On three occasions in the past fortnight the House has heard assurances from the Government about the need to improve the facilities for Service voters—first, during the Committee stage of the Referendum Bill, from the Minister of State for Defence; next, a week ago today, from the Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Royal Air Force; and today from the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department—and all three Ministers, speaking with the authority of the Government, have told us that it is the Government's intention to introduce legislation at an early opportunity, as I think the hon. Lady put it, to put right what we all recognise to be something gravely wrong; namely, that only 100,000 out of 400,000 entitled to be on the Service register are, in fact, on that register.
In my view, Clause 2 of the Bill would meet precisely the purpose of the legislation which three Ministers within the past fortnight have already promised. Since the Government themselves have accepted the purpose of that clause, it is a matter of great regret that the hon. Lady is not able to accept that part of the Bill, quite apart from the rest of it, to which I shall come.
The hon. Lady spoke of various difficulties. I remind the House that the Minister of State for Defence has written to a number of hon. Members, including myself. His letter bears yesterday's date, and in it he says:
As I think we all recognised during the Committee stage of the Referendum Bill, the special arrangements for Service voting are inevitably complex. I have therefore had prepared the attached checklist describing the entitlement to vote in the referendum of various categories of personnel, and I am


sending copies to other Members who have shown particular interest.
The fact that since the Committee stage of the Referendum Bill—that is, in less than 10 days—the Minister of State has been able to devise those arrangements for Service voters leads me to believe that the difficulties to which the hon. Lady referred have been somewhat exaggerated. Again, therefore, I commend the purpose of Clause 2 of my hon. Friend's Bill.
I turn now to Clause 1, which deals with arrangements for voting by those on holiday. I believe that perhaps the most fundamental right in any democracy is the right to vote. I also believe that it is unjustified and unjustifiable that those who happen to be away on holiday through no fault of their own but because the Prime Minister of the day happens to advise the Queen to dissolve Parliament, or through the accident, which I hope will very soon be forthcoming, of a Government defeat on the Floor of the House, should be deprived of this most fundamental and crucial right.
If I understood the Under-Secretary correctly, she said that at the two General Elections last year 1 million people voted by post. That figure surprised me, and if I misunderstood her perhaps she will correct me.

Dr. Summerskill: The figure I gave was for the October 1974 election only

Mr. Gow: Can the Under-Secretary say what the figure was for the February election?

Dr. Summerskill: Not without notice.

Mr. Gow: I am grateful to the UnderSecretary—

Mr. George Cunningham: I can tell the hon. Member that the Home Office at one time gave me the information that in the February General Election 2 per cent. of the total number who voted did so by post. He can do the arithmetic for himself.

Mr. Gow: I am grateful to the hon. Member. It is reasonable to assume that the figure for the October election would not have been materially different from that for the February election. It is, therefore, likely that on each occasion

approximately 1 million people voted by post. The Under-Secretary said as pert of her argument against the extension of postal votes for those on holiday that in a sense this would amount to postal votes on demand. Is it not the case, however—again I invite the Under-Secretary to disagree with me if I am wrong—that the business postal vote is, as the law now stands, on demand to the same extent as postal votes for those on holiday would be? If one is prepared to be dishonest one can already obtain a business postal vote, and if that is the case I do not see that the Under-Secretary's argument stands up.
Nor do I find anything offensive to the democratic principle in voting by post. My prediction would be that before the end of the century we shall have introduced an optional vote which can he made either in person or by post. The House will remember that my party proposed that there should be a built-in right for trade unionists not to vote in person at the election of the officers of their unions.

Mr. George Cunningham: Does the hon. Member realise the difference that when one votes in person at what I might call informal elections, such as some trade union and association elections, that is not a secret vote, and it is not expected to be a secret vote in some cases? The postal vote is of necessity not a secret vote, and in wanting to offer that to everyone he is going back to the situation which existed before the Ballot Act

Mr. Gow: I see no evidence for saying that the postal vote is not secret. It may or may not be.

Mr. George Cunningham: Exactly.

Mr. Gow: I wonder in how many cases of the million people who voted by post last October, the hon. Gentleman or the hon. Lady suggest that there was intimidation or improprietory.

Sir A. Meyer: This is a rather semantic argument. There is a widespread belief that even the ordinary vote can be attributed, because a number is stamped on the form. I know that it is not true, but it is widely believed. Therefore, in a sense it makes the


ordinary voter a potential target for corruption, in that he can easily be convinced that his vote is traced, and to that extent convinced that it could be bought or sold.

Mr. Gow: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that valuable intervention.
The hon. Lady concluded by saying that she expected that the next Speakers' Conference would consider the substance of the proposals in Clause 1. I believe that it would not be right to postpone the matter until the next Speaker's Conference, which is likely to recommend precisely what my hon. Friend suggests in the clause. We should take the plunge now.
I believe that the Under-Secretary has accepted in principle the purpose of Clause 3. Where there is an administrative error as a result of which that most fundamental and crucial right in a democracy, the right to vote, is denied, she seemed to concede in principle that there should be an opportunity for rectification. She rightly said that the remedy of mandamus is not one which more than the strange legal fraternity can comprehend.
The clause is long overdue. We have all had people come to us shortly before polling day and say with great disappointment "We filled up our form in October, yet we are not on the register." They often wish to vote not for our own party but for another. Other people's forms may have been destroyed before they got into the hands of the addressee, or have not been despatched. Where they were filled up an administrative error may have been made in the returning officer's office. The hon. Lady and I have known of forms from whole streets being mislaid, perhaps being put into a wastepaper basket instead of going on to the electoral registration officer's desk or that of his deputy.
Clause 3 would remedy that situation. It is not good enough for the Government to say "Give us time. The matter should be investigated by the Speaker's Conference or the working party." It is time the House took action to right a wrong. I believe that the Bill would have overwhelming support in the country, and I very much hope that the House will give it a Second Reading.

3.49 p.m.

Mr. George Cunningham: I believe that this is the third time I have spoken in the House on the subject of postal voting. Whenever I have done so, I have had great difficulty in persuading other hon. Members to perceive the danger in postal voting that I perceive. I think particularly of the hon. Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence). By showing him the relevant passages in "Parker's Conduct of Parliamentary Elections" after the last discussion, I was able to persuade him that on one point of fact I was right and he was wrong. I am always moved to wonderment at the number of occasions when non-lawyers like myself can draw to the attention of lawyers like the hon. Gentleman aspects of the law with which they have managed to evade acquaintance in the course of their legal training.
I am completely in favour in principle of giving the vote to everyone who qualifies on the residence test if means of doing so can be found without overwhelming administrative difficulty and without the possibility of abuse. Contempt has been poured by two former bureaucrats on the benches opposite on the difficulties seen by the bureaucrats in giving the vote to holiday makers. As another former bureaucrat I share their contempt and the supposed, and in some measure real, administrative difficulties of giving the vote to holiday makers. I am not persuaded that the right to vote is too important to be lost only because we must have a longer period of notice of an election or at the cost of greater difficulty for returning officers. It is abuse, and abuse only, which persuades me that this would be a great mistake.
I accept that the abuse which would apply to giving the postal vote to an extended category of people already can exist in respect of those who enjoy it at the moment. But numbers are of the essence, because one bribes people only if one can bribe enough of them for it to stand a chance of having an effect. When one talks about bribery in British elections, one is met with a look of incredulity as if one had walked out of the eighteenth century. But it is a good thing to apply our mind to the question of what it is that stops us having the buying of votes—that is the corruption that I am talking about—in elections.
There are two things. First, one would have to buy a lot of votes. Therefore, the universal franchise was a very big factor in killing corruption in elections. But that does not apply to many ward elections at local level, which is where we find corruption in our political life.
The second reason lies in the secrecy of the voting. There has been confusion, and there always is confusion, when one talks about the secrecy of the vote. It can mean two things. It can mean the right to keep one's vote secret—and no one says that the postal vote does not completely preserve that right. But the more important way in which we have secrecy in British voting is that the secrecy is obligatory. If a person wants to show someone else how he voted, he cannot do it—it is illegal—and the physical arrangements legally prescribed are such as to make it well nigh impossible at the polling station.
On the last occasion when we debated this matter, I drew attention to a passage of Parker at page 187 on the conduct of the poll which stated:
A voter who deliberately marks his ballot paper openly instead of secretly violates
a certain rule and any
provision that is mandatory upon himself; and if this be done in view of the presiding officer"—
that is, in the sight of the presiding officer—
or of his poll clerk, it is submitted that the latter should refuse to admit the ballot paper into the ballot box.
The whole point of the ballot Act was not to give a right to secrecy but to make it impossible for a person to prove to the man trying to buy his vote that he had not done his part of the bargain.

Mr. Gow: Is the hon. Gentleman saying that that is the law as it stands? If so, does he know of any case in which the paragraph which he has just quoted was put into operation?

Mr. Cunningham: As the hon. Gentleman knows, the physical arrangements in the polling station are such that it would be very awkward to endeavour to show one's ballot paper to anyone who wanted to see it. Anyone who wanted to sell his vote would apply for the postal vote. The principle of secrecy which I have just stated, and which is

essential to prohibit and make impossible the buying of votes, is totally violated by the postal vote.
A person who is given a postal vote can sit in his home or wherever he likes with his ballot paper in front of him and, if he wishes, mark it in the presence of a witness. He can then say "I have voted for you "or" I have voted for your man". In that way a person can do what no one is supposed to be able to do after the ballot Act. It is in that sense that I call the postal vote a witnessable vote. This has nothing to do with the form which the postal voter has to have witnessed. It is a witnessable vote in the sense that the person who is entitled to cast the vote can vote, if he so wishes, in the presence of a witness and prove how he has voted.
We started giving the facility of the postal vote, dangerous though it is, to people who were too ill or too disabled to get to the poll. The numbers were so small that they made no difference. They were such that no one tried to swing even a ward election by means of buying the votes of a few disabled people who were unable to get to the poll. We then extended the facility to business voters. It has now been extended by legislative and administrative means to people who are too ill to get to the poll.
We do not now require a registration officer to obtain medical certification that a person who has applied for the vote is too ill to go to the poll. The registration officers are entitled at their discretion to insist upon that evidence but they can choose to be satisfied by other evidence or by none at all. In fact, some adopt that approach—for example, my own registration officer. In my constituency it is possible for Mr. A to ask for a "sick vote" with Mr. B signing to say that he is sick. Mr. B can then apply for the vote with Mr. A signing that he is sick. That constitutes a vote on application.
Long before this matter was discussed in the House last May, I had correspondence with the Home Office on the subject. I asked that Home Office staff should be more ferocious about the lax discretion employed by returning officers. If one returning officer is being rather soft, another returning officer will feel that he should not be considerably more severe. That applies especially if the Government, in their non-wisdom, are taking


half-page advertisements—this applies to both the last Conservative Government and the present Government—in the newspapers to tell people that they can have a vote if they are sick or away on business.
It has been suggested that probably million people voted in each election last year by post. We were given the figure of 1 million for October. Probably the number of votes cast in the February election would be about 30 million. I believe that 2 per cent. of 30 million works out at something rather less than 750,000. If both those figures are correct, this means that even between February, the beginning of the massive advertising campaign, and October there was approximately a 50 per cent. increase in the number of people voting by post. That is a matter that we should not contemplate with equanimity.
There is, however, an alternative. We can give the vote to people who are away on holiday by requiring them to vote in person at special polling stations in the places where they happen to be—in the town hall at Blackpool, Eastbourne or wherever it may be. They will vote then according to the normal rules of secrecy, and accordingly all the abuses to which I have drawn attention will not apply. We can—

It being Four o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.

Debate to be resumed upon Friday next.

REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE (AMENDMENT) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

Hon. Members: Object.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: What day? No day named.

PARLIAMENTARY COMMISSIONER (AMENDMENT) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

Hon. Members: Object.

Second Reading deferred till Friday next.

COMPANIES BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

Hon. Members: Object.

Second Reading deferred till Friday next.

EDUCATION (PARENTS' CHARTER) BILL

Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Second Reading [25th April].

Mr. Deputy Speaker: What day? No day named.

CONVEYANCERS (HOMES FOR THE PEOPLE) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

Hon. Members: Object.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: What day? No day named.

MOTOR-CYCLE CRASH HELMETS (RELIGIOUS EXEMPTION) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

Hon. Members: Object.

Second Reading deferred till Friday next.

TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING (ENFORCEMENT ORDERS) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

Hon. Members: Object.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: What day? No day named.

DIVORCE LAW REFORM (SCOTLAND) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

Hon. Members: Object.

Second Reading deferred till Friday next.

ADJOURNMENT

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Pavitt.]

CHILDREN (DETENTION)

4.2 p.m.

Mr. Robert Kilroy-Silk: I am extremely grateful to have this opportunity to discuss what I believe to be a very important and extremely disturbing situation. I refer, of course, to the number of children between the ages of 14 and 16 who are currently being incarcerated in prison establishments.
I believe—and it is an opinion shared by a large number of my hon. Friends—that this is a situation which causes a great amount of anxiety and is a real cause for concern. At the same time, it is one which seems to arouse nothing more than the excessive complacency of the Government. There seems to be a considerable desire on the part of the Government to do nothing to tackle the problem. They seem to spend their time passing the problem back and forth between the Home Office and the Department of Health and Social Security, with my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General playing a middle role somewhere between them.
As long ago as 1969, in the Children and Young Persons Act, we provided for a system of community homes. That measure established the principle that children should not be in prison establishments. It set out firmly and clearly the assumption and view that prison was an inappropriate place in which to put children and that their needs had to be catered for in a community-care kind of system.
Despite that, the vast majority of young offenders between the ages of 14 and 16 are sent to penal institutions, which I believe to be totally inappropriate to their ages, to their circumstances, to their needs and, in many cases, to the offences which they have committed.
No one could reasonably argue that a prison establishment was an appropriate place in which to put a child. It would be extremely difficult to find anyone to argue the case for a child being put in a prison establishment. But, whereas in 1971 2,764 boys entered prison custody at remand centres, the number increased in 1974 to a staggering 4,645 boys. Of this latter group, 3,340 were on remand awaiting trial. They had not been convicted of any offence. They were innocent in law. We were, in

effect, interning children without trial and, moreover, putting them into prison establishments.
Taking the figures a little further, in 1973 a total of 3,760 boys were put into prison establishments, of whom 2,697 were untried, innocent, being interned while awaiting trial. In that same year a total of 202 girls, of whom 155 were untried, were put into prison establishments.
These figures are bad enough. They are not only a poor reflection on our system of administration of justice but a gross indictment of our welfare and support facilities. They certainly make a mockery of everything that has been said or promised about the problems of dealing with the difficulties of young offenders since the landmark White Paper on the child, the family and the young offender.
What is worse and, in many ways, even more alarming than the fact that in 1975 we are putting children into prison establishments is that so many of these children are subsequently found not guilty or are given non-custodial sentences.
I hesitate to quote figures yet again. They are boring and repetitive and I am not particularly numerate with figures. Nevertheless, they are necessary to illustrate and highlight the nature and scale of the problem.
Of those 3,760 boys entering prison establishments in 1973, 1,514 were subsequently found not guilty or given non-custodial sentences. Of the 202 girls similarly entering prison establishments, a staggering 152 were found not guilty or given non-custodial sentences. That means that nearly 50 per cent. of the boys and over 75 per cent. of the girls incarcerated in prison establishments in that year and given the harrowing taste of prison life and all that that entails ought not to have been there in the first place. That was clearly indicated by the subsequent verdicts of the courts. Many of those childred were in remand centres, which, in all but name, are in fact prisons, but some of them were in local prisons awaiting trial.
For example, on 5th February this year there were 11 boys and four girls in prisons. On 31st March these figures had increased to 17 boys and seven girls. The problem is getting worse.
It is ironic that we would not dream of putting into prison a 14-year-old girl


or a 16-year-old boy who had been convicted of an offence, yet, somehow or other we manage to put unconvicted boys and girls into prisons. There would be a tremendous outcry if it became an act of policy to imprison convicted children. Yet, somehow or other—as a matter of fact, as an administrative convenience—we are managing to get away with the imprisonment of unconvicted children awaiting trial.
That in itself is disturbing, but what is more disturbing is the time spent in custody awaiting trial. Of all those I have in mentioned in 1973, 50 boys and six girls were subsequently found not guilty. Indeed, 45 of those boys and five of those girls aged between 14 and 16 spent up to a month in prison establishments and three of the boys and one of the girls spent between one and three months in prison establishments before being found not guilty.
Then there is the second category of those who are convicted of an offence but are given non-custodial sentences, and in the same year 62 boys and girls spent two to three months in prison establishments although they were subsequently deemed to have committed an offence so trivial as not to require a custodial sentence. Three spent between five and six months in prison establishments, and four over six months, all again subsequently being given non-custodial sentences. This I believe to be a shocking indictment of our whole judicial system and reflects, I believe, the complacency and blandness of successive Governments.
Nor are the offences with which the children are charged particularly serious or harrowing. Most of them, indeed, are relatively trivial offences. For example, of the 17 boys and seven girls to whom I referred who were in prisons on 21st March of this year, five were there for theft, one for taking a motor vehicle, and six for taking a motor vehicle without the authority or consent of the owner. We put children into prison for that? We put eight children into prison for burglary. We put one girl aged between 14 and 16 into Holloway for soliciting, and one for loitering with intent to commit an arrestable offence. Is this the picture of a so-called humane, Civilized, compassionate society, or is it more appropriately the real picture of a Dickensian hard-

nosed Britain and a complacent Government?
I should like briefly to give two cases, one of a girl of 14 and one a girl of 16, both of whom spent some considerable time in Holloway prison. The 16-year-old girl was charged with stealing £6 worth of detergents from a super-market. No one represented her in court, her parents were not informed, she was put in Holloway, and only subsequently, after representations were made on her behalf, was she given bail. We put her in prison for stealing £6 worth of detergents, and eventually she was given bail.
The 14-years-old girl was charged with theft to the value of £30. No one represented her in court, she was not given bail, and she was put into Holloway. But, again, when representations were eventually made on her behalf she was brought out on bail after spending a week in Holloway. No one, I believe, would seriously suggest that either of those girls should have been imprisoned in the first place. Nor, indeed, should they have been imprisoned even on conviction. They should certainly not have been imprisoned immediately after the alleged offence without it being proved.
What are the reasons for the increasing number of children being put into prison establishments? I do not believe that it is the wicked magistrates to whom people sometimes refer, but I believe that there are some magistrates who are remand-happy. Indeed, as I believe the Home Office Advisory Board, as reported in The Guardian on 29th April, indicated, some magistrates are far too concerned with what they envisage to be their role in protecting the public who come into their domain. In many cases they place undue emphasis on the protection of the public instead of looking at and trying to accommodate the need of many children who do not require any kind of support. Some magistrates penalize rather than help, and they are creating the criminals of the future, when what is really needed is a much more discriminating and humane approach.
Nor do I believe that it is necessarily the fault of the social workers, though many of them are unduly happy about getting "unruly" certificates signed, perhaps in some cases to get what to them


is a somewhat troublesome child off their hands, and perhaps my hon. and learned Friend will deal with this when he replies to the debate. There seems to have been a sudden increase in "unruly" certificates, which seem to be thrown out like confetti, and a dramatic drop in the number of supervision orders. Are these children really unruly? Is the Home Secretary really signing this many certificates? What does he mean by "unruly"? Yet most of these children, in order that they be entertained at Her Majesty's expense in a prison, have to be certified as being so unruly as to be beyond even the care of a local authority.
No, the fault does not lie exclusively with either magistrates or social workers, nor, as many people would like to believe, and certainly suggest, with the Children and Young Persons Act. The fault lies squarely on the shoulders of successive Governments for having willed the end but been unwilling to provide the means.
There is no point in the Minister passing the buck yet again today and saying "Yes, I sympathise, I understand, and my regrets are as profound, as deep, as sincere as yours, but it is not my fault. You should speak to the Secretary of State for Social Services". That will not do. That has been said too many times in the past. There is no point in my hon. Friend expressing sympathy. I know that he has sympathy and I believe that he is sincere, but we have had enough of sympathy in the past. Sympathy will not do for all these many hundreds of children who are now in prison establishments.
Nor is there any point in my hon. Friend saying "Yes, but many of these children are on remand in custody because we need reports on their psychiatric state." Prison is a strange place in which to draw up a psychiatric report. In any event, it would seem to exacerbate, rather than to solve, the problem. It is not the place in which assessments of children can be properly and adequately made.
Nor is there any point in the Minister trying to minimise the problem, because, like juvenile crime itself, it is increasing. He accepts, I acccept and I believe this House accepts—this is demonstrated in two Early-Day Motions—that prison is in-

appropriate for children and that the practice is indefensible, that it is criminal to put 14-year-old girls and boys between 14 and 16 in prison. What we want now, and what I hope my hon. Friend will give, is a clear, unequivocal commitment to action.

4.17 p.m.

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon): This is a serious matter and all of us involved with the problem of juvenile delinquency and criminal offences by young people recognise that the situation is serious. It will not be helped, if I may say so, by extrapolating from inadequate evidence some rather wild suggestions which came out in parts of the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Ormskirk (Mr. Kilroy-Silk) and which marred the signal service that he has done to the House and the country over the last few weeks, as well as today, in focusing attention upon this problem. The problem and the facts are sufficiently serious to make their own impact without the use of the kind of language which my hon. Friend has sought to use today. Recognising that, I want to answer him in a perfectly serious vein.
The first thing to recognise is that under Section 19(1) of the Powers of Criminal Courts Act 1973 neither a Crown court nor a magistrates' court is allowed to impose imprisonment on a person under the age of 17. In addition, under Section 23 of the Children awl Young Persons Act 1969 a court which remands a person under the age of 17 and does not release him on bail is required to commit him to the care of a local authority. Therefore, the statutory protection for children of the age group about which my hon. Friend is concerned is already very stringent.
The kind of children to whom my hon. Friend has referred get into prison largely as a result of the use of the "unruly" certificate. He said that he was not blaming social workers or magistrates. He wanted to know why the Home Secretary was issuing "unruly" certificates. I am afraid that my hon. Friend's research, which has been prolific over the past few weeks, did not take him quite far enough. We have no power over the issue of "unruly" certificates. It is for the juvenile court or the magistrates' court


to decide whether they will issue an "unruly" certificate, and they will normally do so only where the social services department indicates that it has no community home where the child can be accommodated safely because of the nature of the behaviour of the child who is appearing before the court. Therefore, what we are concerned about is children who are so difficult that it would not be easy to keep them within the existing community homes provision. It is that that has caused the difficulty.
I recognise—and I am concerned about it, as is my hon. Friend—the extent to which the use of "unruly" certificates over the last few years has, in fact, burgeoned. But it may be an indication either of a different attitude on the part of the social services departments or the courts or, much more likely, that the whole problem of delinquency among young people is reaching considerably greater proportions than it has ever reached in the past.

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: My hon. Friend is making little of this. Four thousand boys have been put in prison this year, and yet we find that the vast majority of them are so unruly that they are not guilty, they have the charges against them dropped or they are given non-custodial sentences. How can they be so unruly if they are subsequently sent out?

Mr. Lyon: I do not know whether my hon. Friend has ever been in the situation of considering such a case, but it is quite conceivable that the court can come to a realistic assessment—I accept that it may not in every case be realistic—that a child is unruly and is yet not convinced that he is guilty of the offence with which he is charged. That is by no means a strange factor. In my experience at the criminal Bar, there have been many men whom I have defended successfully who had very bad records indeed and might have been described as violent, unruly or in every other way bad characters, but, nevertheless, they were not guilty of the offences with which they were charged.
That is the position here. It may be—I accept my hon. Friend's thesis—that the courts are being too lax in the use of the "unruly" certificate, but such evidence as we have would not tend to sub-

stantiate that on a big scale. There are obviously exceptions. Some of the matters to which my hon. Friend has referred are, perhaps, exceptions. But we are, so far as we can, encouraging courts to remand on bail in as large a number of cases as possible.
It is true that the Children and Young Persons Act 1969 also gave the Home Secretary the power to phase out the use of the unruly "certificate in relation to specified classes of young people. It would be possible for us to move in that direction—we are anxious to do so—as soon as enough secure community homes are available for us to do so. Here I think that my hon. Friend has a perfectly valid objection. It is true that successive Governments, of both parties, have not yet put enough resources into the problem of meeting this particular difficulty, either for children on remand or even for children who are in care. We have given a great deal of attention to that in the last year.
As I indicated in a debate in December, the scale of local authority provision in the coming financial year for the provision of security homes is very considerable indeed. A substantial number of places will become available, but they are not yet available. Therefore, we cannot move as fast as certainly the Home Secretary and I should like in phasing out this power. In view of my hon. Friend's campaign, we shall carefully consider the possibility of starting to phase out this power as applied to girls aged 14. Perhaps we can make a small start there.
The position is not quite as simple as my hon. Friend suggested. In every case where a child is remanded into secure accommodation other than to a community home, the court has to send the child to the institution in that area which is available for it on remand. In most cases these are remand centres. Most of the boys about whom my hon. Friend has expressed concern go into remand centres which are designed to take boys up to the age of 21. They do not take males above that age except at Risley, where there is a physical separation between males over 21 and those under 21. The concern is that they might mix with boys of an older age group than 17. In most cases there is physical separation of boys over 17 and those under 17.
Even if they go to a remand centre which can technically be called a prison, they are still going to a quite separate establishment.
There is concern about location in a prison as such. That happens in six local prisons throughout England and Wales where the courts have nowhere else in the neighbourhood to send young males, where there is no remand centre to be used for the purpose. These are Bedford, Canterbury, Lincoln, Norwich, Oxford, and Shrewsbury.
The sending of girls to Holloway is what causes most vocal complaint. This applies to all girls in the South-East and the Midlands, where the only reception place is Holloway. There is small possibility of our ever being able to provide a remand centre to cope with the small number of girls admitted to Holloway. The girls can be physically separated in the hospital establishment. We do not regard this as very satisfactory. Probably the best way of dealing with the problem will be to move as quickly as

possible to phasing out "unruly" certificates for girls. There may still be problems involved in going as high as 16.
Although the position is grave, we are not as complacent as my hon. Friend suggested. We are moving as quickly as we can to providing the amount of secure accommodation that will allow us to phase out. We shall be fortified in our resolution to do that by all the criticism my hon. Friend has directed at us and by his highlighting of the problem today.
This is only a small part of the total difficulty about juvenile offences which is at present under review by my Department and the Department of Health and Social Security as part of our overall review of the problems associated with the Children and Young Persons Act. We shall take it into consideration in reporting on the review.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Four o'clock.